QuarterTones | Music from the Arab World

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QuarterTones | Music from the Arab World Podcast

Quartertones is a music podcast which hosts current Arab musicians from different geographies who play contemporary and modern music, including pop, rock, hip-hop, electronic, classical, among other genres. The guests are invited to talk about their work and play their music – whether live or recorded – in three segments. The audience gets a chance to listen to work from across the region and genres that is defining the scene in the region, and understand the music that these musicians and musicologists perform or study.

  1. 28 AUG

    Scoring Films With the Composer of Corvine, Crashing Eid, The Curve & Flight 404 | Suad Bushnaq

    It's not often that we welcome a film score composer on QuarterTones. So we had a lot to chat about with award-winning composer Suad Bushnaq. We discuss the realities of writing music for cinema, her favorite Arab film scores of all time, and why the best movie soundtracks are those that you don't remember. We quizz Suad on how she chooses a key for her music, what it was like to study at Damascus' Higher Institute of Music after auditioning in front of no-other than the late Solhi al-Wadi, and overcoming one's ego as a creative.

    1h 2m

  2. 14 AUG

    Cheb Mimo | Crate Digging For Lost Raï

    In this episode of QuarterTones, Cheb Mimo joins us in our podcast studio in Beirut along with his cassette player, turntable, and rare records and tapes, to take us on a tour of North Africa's raï, funk, and disco. With each musical interlude, Cheb Mimo introduces both well-known, niche and sometimes forgotten musicians through the past decades. We get a feel for raï as a transgressive genre that evokes a sense of liberation and rebellion. Cheb Mimo shares insights about playing sets with tapes versus records, how and where he goes hunting for musical treasures, and the transformation of raï over the years.

    1h 1m

  3. 7 AUG

    Rayess Bek: Studio Session

    We're stoked to finally be launching our live in-studio sessions in our podcast recording studio in Beirut as an extension to Quartertones. The first is with no other than our past guest Rayess Bek (aka Wael Kodeih), the Lebanese music composer, producer, and performer's behind projects such as Love & Revenge, Aks'ser, and Goodbye Schlöndorff. He plays three tracks from recent projects, explaining the background behind the archival cinematic clips that his music accompanies, how he chooses which films to remix, and whose voices he selects to work with. From Mohammed Abdel Wahab's Ya Masafer Wahdak, Saudi Arabia's Ibtisam Lutfi to Mauritania's Horreya Rayess Bek takes us around the Arab world through his music.

    13 min

  4. 31 JUL

    Why You Should Invest in Beirut's Music Scene | Sharif Sehnaoui

    What makes experimental music…experimental? And what does it take to cultivate a thriving musical scene in the context of the Arab world? In this episode of QuarterTones, Sharif Sehnaoui joins us in our studio in Beirut to talk about the genre in the Arab world, the cultural significance and economic value of music, why his work is in itself an act of resistance, and Lebanon's unique position where the music and creative scenes are considered.

    59 min

  5. 17 JUL

    Reinterpreting Traditional & Popular North African Music | Khalil EPI

    This QuarterTones episode is exceptionally in French and is hosted by our Outline host, Sabine Boghossian. We chat with Khalil Hentati (EPI) a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and essential figure in North Africa's alternative, electronic and contemporary music scenes. He shares the stories behind the origins of his collaborations and dives into the musical traditions of North Africa — namely Aïta and Isawiyya – discussing the disappearance of these oral traditions. Khalil talks about the music that inspired him as a teenager, and how "shaabi" music is perceived and understood today. He finally, reflects on the impact of the Tunisian revolution on politics, culture and music, as well as the state of the musical ecosystem in North Africa today.

    59 min

  6. 3 JUL

    How JadaL Pioneered Arabic Rock From Jordan

    In this episode of QuarterTones, we're joined by the frontman of pioneering Jordanian rock band, JadaL. Mahmoud Radaideh tells us about how the band popularized the genre in the Arab world, reflecting on his journey as a musician, and the shifting moment when an artist realizes that their work no longer belongs to them solely – but to their audience even more so. With each musical interlude, we hear about the stories behind some of JadaL's best known tracks, learn more about Jordan's music scene, and the short but rich history of Arabic rock.

    58 min

  7. 19 JUN

    Is There a Sound That's Unique to Arab America? | Ronnie Malley

    Multi-instrumentalist musician and musicologist Ronnie Malley shares his immense knowledge of Arabic classical music, touring us through the fundamentals of the musical canon and the sounds, songs and rhythms that define it. He tells us about his early exposure to Arabic music in Chicago playing for his father's bands, through thousands of wedding performances, to building a career alongside some of the biggest names in Arabic music. We learn about the history of Arabic music from Al-Andalus, the Ottoman Empire and all the way to India, and how Ronnie seeks to bring these sounds together in his own Arab-American context. To round the interview off, he shares some of the best Arab musicians that we should all be listening to.

    56 min

  8. 5 JUN

    Behind the Scenes: Alternative Music in Beirut | Fadi Tabbal

    Fadi Tabbal is a hidden giant of Beirut's alternative music scene. He joins us in our studio in Beirut to talk about the music he's produced over the years, the independent musicians on the rise, and the work that his studio – Tunefork studios – is doing. He compares the music scenes in Beirut, Cairo and Dubai, and explains how there are no records or archives of the alternative music that came before the last decade. He takes us on a journey through the 70s to the 2000s and 2010s, talks about music in the internet age, and tells us how Red Bull shaped the music scene in Lebanon for a period of time.

    1h 4m
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About

Quartertones is a music podcast which hosts current Arab musicians from different geographies who play contemporary and modern music, including pop, rock, hip-hop, electronic, classical, among other genres. The guests are invited to talk about their work and play their music – whether live or recorded – in three segments. The audience gets a chance to listen to work from across the region and genres that is defining the scene in the region, and understand the music that these musicians and musicologists perform or study.

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