Aural Aggravation

Experimental filmmaker and Jerusalem In My Heart visual artist/projectionist Erin Weisgerber’s frenetic and elegiac video for ‘Abyad Barraq’ (from the forthcoming album Qalaq) opens with intense blasts of rapid-fire hand-processed film frames, gradually moving from pure abstraction to recognisable imagery, using the pictures of Beirut-based photographer Tony Elieh as source material.

‘Abyad Barraq’ turns from maximalist blast beats (courtesy Greg Fox) processed and sung over by JIMH composer/producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, to a haunting drone where Moumneh’s Arabic vocal and modular synthesis inscribe shattering mournful melodic invocations. Weisgerber’s film similarly shifts to longer shots of Elieh’s photography, which documents the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion but also inescapably evokes the city’s deeper tragic histories of destruction and devastation. The final series of untreated and re-projected photographic stills at the end of the ‘Abyad Barraq’ film include Elieh images featured in the Qalaq album packaging.

AA

JERUSALEM IN MY HEART
QALAQ TOUR 2021

31.10  Brussels BE  •  Botanique/Rotonde (tix)
01.11  Diksmuide BE  •  4AD (tix)
03.11  Nantes FR  •  Le Lieu Unique
04.11  Bordeaux FR  •  Blonde Venus (tix)
05.11  Bourges FR  •  Antre Peaux/Nadir (tix)
06.11  Dijon FR  •  La Vapeur (tix)
07.11  Geneva CH  •  Cave12 * (tix)
08.11  Clermont-Ferrand FR  •  La Coopérative de Mai ** (tix)
09.11  Lille FR  •  L’Aéronef ** (tix)
10.11  Metz FR  •  Chapelle des Trinitaires *** (tix)
12.11  Paris FR  •  La Station
15.11  Munich DE  •  Rote Sonne
17.11  Genoa IT  •  La Claque
18.11  Terni IT  •  Teatro Secci
19.11  Ravenna IT  •  Bronson
20.11  Cornuda IT  •  Tipoteca Italiana
26.11  Montréal CA  •  La Cinémathèque
27.11  Montréal CA  •  La Cinémathèque
04.12  Ottawa CA  •  Arts Court (Pique Series)
07.12  Quebec CA  •  Grand Théâtre
* w/Jessica Moss   ** w/Thurston Moore Group   *** w/Ana Roxanne