CHARBEL HABER, NICOLÁS JAAR, SARY MOUSSA - Crashing waves dance to the rhythm set by the broadcast journalist revealing the tragedies of the day

Recorded on August 2, 2024 at Tunefork Studios in Beirut, during the Israeli attack, “Crashing waves dance to the rhythm set by the broadcast journalist revealing the tragedies of the day” lays bare its political soul starting from its sprawling title, and aims to demand utmost concentration, as publicly hoped for by the trio made up of Charbel Haber, Nicolás Jaar and Sary Moussa.

Three different approaches come together in four electroacoustic pieces designed, at least on paper, to silence thoughts and lead them out of the media chaos of disposable news — tragically dramatic, as it has been for centuries, day after day, from a battered Middle East. It's no coincidence, then, that the four movements were later merged into a single final track on Bandcamp.

The three musicians, once reunited in Beirut, gave life to a deconstructed minimalism cast in a philosophically “dancing” key, moving between ambient patterns, clarinets suspended in shadow, and guitars drifting toward a new horizon — a quality also captured in the cover photograph.

“This is not a composed reflection, but a sound document born under pressure that deserves attention. Each artist, rooted in long-standing experimental practices spanning Beirut, Santiago and beyond, brings an individual sonic vocabulary, shaped by memory, movement and collective experience,” reads the trio's statement.

It is indeed a single suite, split across four stops, flowing languidly, for an album also marked by small sonic ruptures that are nothing but the shifting moods of the three musicians — horrified by the terror unfolding in Beirut, yet resolute and steadfast in carrying out their artistic mission.

Leading the trio is Charbel Haber, who emerged from the post-war scene of the Lebanese capital in the late 1990s, moving between electroacoustic installations, theatre, film and dance. At home Haber is also known for founding bands like Scrambled Eggs and The Bunny Tylers. The circularity of his visions blends well with the increasingly dancefloor-distant soul of Nicolás Jaar and the shamanic spirit with which Sary Moussa — also part of the Lebanese underground music scene — ultimately handles the editing from the control room.

It's a jagged calm that stands out in a work reaching its peak in the scant ten minutes of “Part 4”, through chords that wander before soaring into the archaic spaces of an imagined Lebanon, ideally free from everything and everyone. Often, one seems almost to encounter Lichens again, and at other times Lawrence English.

“Crashing waves dance to the rhythm set by the broadcast journalist revealing the tragedies of the day” is, in any case, an electroacoustic immersion that in its own way reveals a hope. A work that could without a doubt also serve as the soundtrack to a silent film. Perhaps it lacks a certain drive, that flash of madness that breaks the hesitation and fuels the pulse. But it's right that it should be this way.

Reality crashed yesterday

Satire became news

Fruits tasteless

A murder of crows hanging on wires

Facing a big white screen

Movie buffs

Fans of 80s snuff

Cheering for death by assassination

It felt like Beirut on a specific summer day

When fire rains and drifters play

I must have lied when I said it was my last breath

It must be August

The air is heavy

It’s loaded with lead and drama

Crashing waves dance to the rhythm set by the broadcast journalist revealing the tragedies of the day

It was another last war

A short episode of another last conflict

Before the sea decides to finally take over

The fleeing tourists and crows are gone now

Left behind are the seagulls

Confused but finally alone

Proud kings of the coastal dump

For a moment there Beirut felt like a William Turner painting

And the sea was getting away with it.

(Charbel Haber, May 2025)

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12/08/2025