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Cassette
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HMR 027CS
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$17.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 1/19/2024
Acclaimed Lebanese artist Yara Asmar is set to mesmerize listeners once again with her new album, Synth Waltzes & Accordion Laments. This eagerly anticipated album, a collection of intimate recordings, provides another glimpse into Yara's world. The album showcases her ability to channel raw emotion into her music. Vulnerable, intimate and moving these pieces were once again recorded at her home in Beirut using lo-fi recording processes. The sound palette here is richer than on her debut, with more focus on synth work and the warm drone of her grandmother's Hohner Marchesa accordion. Here are Yara's own words about the album: "In March 2023, I went to the Black Forest in Germany for a residency. I arrived to the forest with my late grandmother's accordion, and people were quick to inform me that this accordion had been built in Trossingen, only a few minutes away from where I was staying. Apparently this was a town of farmers, and during the winter when the farms were dormant, people would turn to building clocks and accordions for the local factories in order to get through the season. When I went to see the workshop, one of the men working there -- pleased and surprised to see teta's Hohner Marchesa -- said something in German and rushed to the back of the shop. He came back out with a ledger and said 'Libano,' pointing to the exact date this accordion was sent to Lebanon: the 21st of October, 1955, alongside seven other accordions, two of which were green. One of these was my grandmother's. To my grandmother, queen of solitaire, who left me her green accordion; gone but never forgotten. To my grandfather and his garden in the middle of the city, and in spite of it. To those who left Beirut, one way or another, and to those who come back. to those who stay."
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Cassette
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HMR 020CS
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Yara Asmar is a 25-year-old multi-instrumentalist, video artist, and puppeteer currently living in Beirut with her cat, Mushroom. Hive Mind Records bring you this wonderful debut album of music she recorded at home on cassettes and a mobile phone over the past few years. On it you'll hear her play a range of instruments including the piano, her grandmother's old accordion which she found in the attic of her grandparent's home in Lebanon, the metallophone, synth, and various deconstructed and disassembled toy pianos and music boxes. You'll also hear her field-recordings of hymns sung in churches around Lebanon which Yara has turned into waltzes. These beautifully melodic works contain recognizable elements of classical music wrapped in layers of tape hiss, synth wash, reverb, and delay, and disturbed by the metallic percussive sounds of the dissembled music boxes. The atmosphere of melancholy that pervades the album should be familiar to anyone living in the 21st century. All music composed, performed, recorded and, produced by Yara Asmar at her home in Beirut. Mastered by Marc Teare. Photography by Yara Asmar. Design by Marc Teare.
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