In response to the current events, experimental and ambient music label Etang Brulant made a public call to all artists who were interested to express their thoughts and feelings regarding the Covid-19 crisis. The goal behind this project is to donate all the collected money to Les Secours Populaire, a French charity fighting against poverty and exclusion.

Etang Brulant is a French Lebanese music label founded in 2018 by Lea Maria Moussali and Victor Pasqual. Initially they imagined an album of nineteen tracks by nineteen artists or groups from around the globe, but due to a huge number of propositions, the compilation was divided in to two parts of fifteen tracks each. One entitled Live Today and the other, Die Tomorrow.

For this occasion, we focus on the twelfth track of the album compilation by Dhakira, entitled “La possibilité d’un après” and the process of creation behind this piece. Dhakira is a multidisciplinary project composed of Sinan Varis and Amalia Jaulin, which focuses on themes such as memory, fragmentation and thinking patterns.

As we exchanged with Amalia (set and graphic designer), she explained that the pattern of this track was created based on her observations from the moment lockdown was announced and what it has led to until now. She broke down the events into several phases and schematized on paper her perception of the sound patterns they would deliver.

The first phase deals with the state of shock, the outburst of the news regarding the impact of the virus and Its chaotic consequences. Comes then the second phase which is manifested through a slowing-down with people staying home and putting on standby the hectic lives they are living, a form of respiration. Nevertheless, feelings of worry and tension build up to the next phase which is one of realization. This last phase obliges one to accept the idea that if humanity wants to survive, spiritual and natural lifestyles will have to be adopted.

With the given insight, the words ‘immersion of the listener’ are ones that come to mind and very well sum up the result the duo aims at reaching throughout their creations.

Based on this sound map, Sinan delivered his interpretation of Amalia’s vision thanks to his skills in sound design and Ableton, field recordings of the nature surrounding him during his confinement and very interestingly, the integration of voice recordings. The duo invited anyone who had the desire to record themselves and express their feelings regarding this epidemic. They asked people to speak in the language they wished in order to put an emphasis on the cruel fact that what we are undergoing is worldwide.

Dhakira gives a lot of importance to the “organic” dimension in the process of creation. One of the testimonies they had received dealt with a few hesitations but regardless of this “defect” if I may say, they chose to leave it as it is, consequently delivering a very honest and realistic output which grabs the listener. Through this process they succeed at conveying a story in the most immersive and possible manner in order to avoid binary outputs. This leads me to my last point: the chainsaw.

When they had finished the track, or had at least thought so, the following question occurred to them: “why should we end this beautifully?”. By challenging aesthetic and moral certainties, they expose the possibility of a disaster. The troubling feature of the chainsaw in the outro is the materialization of a door which could open, and which is more likely to open than one filled with hope. “La Possibilité d’un Après” is a retrospective of these past few weeks as well as the demonstration of a future that we hope to avoid.

If a full body and mind immersion is what you are looking for, this track and compilation is worthy of attention!

Live Today is out now and you can get yours at: https://etangbrulant.bandcamp.com/album/live-today

-Daisy Sous