Sametou Sawtan by SANAM

For fans of Molchat Doma, Lingua Ignota, krautrock, and that knot that forms in your throat when you realize an insane headline isn’t a hoax, Sametou Sawtan by SANAM examines our paradoxical detachment from the world using a perspective found at the core of the region most impacted by colonialism. This Lebanese experimental rock outfit employs heavy influence from local folk traditions to transmit the absolute horror of the global news cycle impacting your country, your community, and your life, with traditional rock instrumentation fluidly trading places with local percussion and melody instruments to form an identity simultaneously cosmopolitan and vernacular. By switching seamlessly between the two, we get a constantly shifting perspective, one unsure of its belongingness behind or in front of the camera of a world press unexpectedly taking post in the speaker’s backyard, unsure of how to proceed since one’s agency in the situation falls into constant question. Sooner or later, the camera will reach our own back yard, and we’ll meet this moment of absolute suspended shock before inevitably springing into fight or flight.