Mazen Kerbaj is a Berlin based artist, widely considered as one of the initiators and key players of the Lebanese free improvisation and experimental music scene. According to this bio, He is co-founder and active member of MILL, the cultural music association behind Irtijal, an improvisation music festival held in Beirut since 2001, and co- founder of Al Maslakh, the first label for experimental music in the region operating since 2005.
Sampler/Sampled is the new album which is out now via Morphine Records. It features Deena Abdelwahed, Nyege Nyege’s Donzilla Lion, Equiknoxx founder Gavsborg, Bob Ostertag, Palestine’s Muqata’a, Rrose, NY artist Marina Rosenfeld, DJ Sniff, Iran’s Fari Bradley, Dieb13, Mexico’s Microhm, and Rabih Beaini.
According to the press release, ‘Sampler / Sampled’ can also be seen as two interdependent albums: ‘Sampler’ and ‘Sampled’. ‘Sampler’: Mazen Kerbaj trumpet solo full-length, like his summit of 25 years of activity in 318 1-to-40 seconds pieces, as an original, multivariate composition (play it shuffle!), a collection of samples for ringtones, phone sound effects, cinema… and for fresh, sample-based music pieces you can find all over ‘Sampled’.
‘Sampled’: sample/loop sound works sourcing ‘Sampler’ itself. Thus, Donzilla Lion (Nyege Nyege), Gavsborg (Equiknoxx), Muqata’a, Bob Ostertag, Rrose, Marina Rosenfeld, DJ Sniff, Fari Bradley, Dieb13, Microhm, Rabih Beaini become co-composers from all over the world, different traditions, radical proof of sound as a universal language — one of “free improvised music” main meaning, now translated into studio composition, instead. Mixing up middle-East with West; messing up their music grammars, vocabularies, languages.
Sampler / Sampled’ breaks boundaries of all kinds, including distance and isolation against music collaboration as such. Like any language, sound shapes meanings, unlocking our understanding of a specific people, place, and time: the history of a community. It’s like a sound-hoard, forming as a proper vocabulary, metaphor for communal, intimate, interconnected experiences. Cyclical, circular responding to sound brings us together. ‘Sampler / Sampled’ means exactly that.
Listen below.