Irtijal 2022
Day 2 – Detailed Program

Friday, April 1st, 2022
Mkalles Warehouse – 8.00pm
Paed Conca clarinet
Akram Hajj drums
Paed Conca and Akram Hajj have integrated their various musical styles and influences into a cacophonous blend of rhythm and sound. Their sonic approach can best be described as psychedelic free-groove, Akram’s driving beat and dirty synths forming a rhythmic canopy below Paed’s ethereal drones, punctuated by stabs from his clarinet. Paed Conca is a composer and improviser on the clarinet and electric bass. He has been active in the contemporary and improvised music scenes for over 30 years, and has collaborated with numerous musicians, actors, dancers, painters and poets. His current touring projects include Praed, clarinet trio Porta Chiusa, and Gamra. He has also composed music for theater, dance and films. Akram Hajj is a Lebanese musician and composer. In addition to his duties as the main drummer for Kinematik, he is a session player at Tunefork Studios in Beirut, where he has recorded soundtracks for films and television ads. He also performs in experimental electro-acoustic duo “Escalier 301B” with Lebanese electronic producer Ziad Moukarzel, and has recently embarked on a successful collaboration with musician and vocalist Nadia Daou.
Alkis Nicolaides electric guitar
George Bizios electric guitar
Alkis Nicolaides is an improvising guitarist and composer from Nicosia, Cyprus. His original work takes many forms and is influenced by a wide array of musical traditions. His interest in exploring many styles and performance methods is rooted to Edgar Varese’s definition of music: “What is music but organized noise?” and David Rosenboom’s statement “What is music? I hope we never see a day when we believe we know the answer.” Nicolaides’ performances have run the gamut from explosive jazz-influenced metal music –“battle jazz”– ASMR cooking performance art, contemporary western art chamber music, music for home appliances, and improvised duets with his pseudo-AI computer instrument “Challenger.”
George Bizios is a guitarist and composer from Cyprus. He performs with various music, interdisciplinary and performing arts ensembles as band leader and collaborator. Currently he is part of a research-based residency program which aims to explore ways in which music can be deconstructed and organically used in different performative contexts, with a focus on the human body.
Nadia Daou clock bells, synth, electronics
Lebanese multi-instrumentalist and singer/spoken word performer Nadia Daou uses a variety of instruments including electric guitar, synth, guembri and karakeb, exploring loops in an atypical manner, creating soundscapes, drones and complex rhythmical improvisations layered one after the other, generating in the process the perfect environment to declaim her words and poetry, often quoting poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Lydia Lunch.
Cedrik Fermont electronics
Yara Asmar electronics
Jawad Nawfal electronics
Elyse Tabet electronics
Cedrik Fermont (aka C-drík, Kirdec, Cdrk) is a Berlin-based Belgian-Congolese composer, musician, mastering engineer, author, radio host, concert organizer, independent researcher, and label manager (at Syrphe) who operates in the fields of noise, electronic, and experimental music since 1989. His compositions and installations vary from sound art and electroacoustic to noise to industrial to more conventional “dance” music (such as electronica or acid). He has toured extensively in Eurasia, Africa, and North America, and his main research focuses on electronic, electroacoustic, experimental, and noise music from Asia and Africa. He occasionally composes music for sound installations, video, theater and choreographies.
Lebanese musician and producer Jawad Nawfal has spearheaded Beirut’s electronic music scene since the early 2000’s. He has released over a dozen albums of experimental electronica for both Lebanese and international labels. Nawfal began collaborating with Belgian electronic producer Cedrik Fermont in the mid-2000’s, recording several releases for his label Syrphe and frequently joining him on stage. In 2019 Nawfal self-founded label VVVA, as a platform for his impressive collection of unreleased tracks and experimental side projects.
Elyse Tabet has been working in audio-visual interaction since the early 2000s, mainly as a videographer for live performances and DJ sets. In 2008, she began recording acousmatic sounds and processing them in DAWs and samplers to produce electronic music. Her sound focuses on textures and draws from noise pop, musique concrete, ambient, industrial electronica, dub and garage beats.
Aya Metwalli voice, electronics
Vincent Moon visuals, electronics
Aya Metwalli is a singer/songwriter, composer and producer from Cairo. Described as “a musical enigma” by The Guardian and a musician who has “crafted a spellbinding brand of anti-pop” by Pitchfork, Metwalli gradually expanded her live set after studying music production in 2014 in Cairo. She self-released her debut EP “Beitak” toward the end of 2016, and has been revamping her sound and developing her modus operandi since. Lately, the influence of both Egyptian pop songs and classics has leaked out of her subconsciousness and found its way onto her particular brand of strange sounds, modulated through synthesizers and drum machines.
Vincent Moon is an independent filmmaker and sound explorer from Paris. Since 2009 he has travelled the world making ethnographic-experimental films, recording traditional and sacred music, filming religious and shamanic rituals under the label Petites Planètes. Moon has documented everything from stadium rock music to acapella village songs, from experimentation in electronics to trance rituals. He makes all his work – films and sound recordings – widely accessible on the internet under open-source licenses. His work currently explores transcendent states using images and sounds, as well as the ritualistic aspects of societies and communities.
june as synth, electronics
Working through a wide-lens approach, june as conducts multi-layered machine ensembles, including self-built hardware and software components. This further feeds into a more expansive approach to synthesis, using embedded systems and sensory data along with algorithmic sequences meant to create morphing musical compositions.
Georges Tabatadze, Patrik Abi Abdallah & Zaki Al Hamwi
Georges Tabatadze electric guitar, synth
Patrik Abi Abdallah drums
Zaki Al Hamwi electric guitar, electronics
George Tabatadze aka Try Harder has been composing, performing, and producing sound for the past 14 years. A painter, designer and visual enthusiast, George has been employing his toolset as part of the Frequent Defect Collective. H.W.G.A. (He Who Goes Anywhere) is the moniker for Patrik Abi Abdallah, a Beirut-based drummer, percussionist and DJ. Debuting with Flum Project as a drummer and co-producer, he later went on to co-found Beirut-based collective Frequent Defect. Zaki Al Hamwi spent his earlier years rooted in classical guitar. In 2012 he took a step into the world of electronic music under the moniker ZELL. He is currently preparing to release an EP for the Aeronema imprint.
Her sound was shaped throughout years of beat-based explorations, using the decks and drum machines in her deconstruct/reconstruct approach. Her art draws vision and inspiration from the murkier edges of beat processions, and takes shape as a manifestation of dissent. Renata is consistently pushing the envelope as an artist and curator, by way of unapologetic radical art and resistance to its underlying taboo subjects.
IRTIJAL 2022 CONCERTS ARE FREE OF CHARGE
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