Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, alongside fellow Montreal artist Charles-André
Coderre, returns with If He Dies, If If If If If If, a second full-length album from
his acclaimed Jerusalem In My Heart (JIMH) project, conceived and recorded in
his dual homes of Montréal and Beirut.
Known for his production and engineering work with artists as diverse as Matana
Roberts (all three chapters of her Coin Coin recordings to date), Mashrou’ Leila,
Ought, Eric Chenaux (with whom he also released a collaborative album for the
Grapefruit Records Club) and Suuns (with whom he also released a collaborative
album on Secretly Canadian in spring 2015), Moumneh has been firing on all
cylinders over the past few years. He has brought JIMH to mesmerized live
audiences in Canada, Europe and the Middle East since the release of his first
album in 2013, following many years during which the project was a strictly
Montréal-based live/theatrical happening. While JIMH continues to expand to
include a larger cast of players for select engagements and commissions, the
group is currently an immersive and performative audio-visual duo at its core,
with Moumneh responsible for all sound/composition and Coderre creating 16mm
visuals and live projections/installations.
Moumneh expands his compositional palette on If He Dies, If If If If If If,
exploring new deconstructions and juxtapositions of both traditional and popular
Arab musical currents, with an album that oscillates between powerfully emotive
vocal tunes and instrumental works that primarily make use of Radwan’s
expressive acoustic playing on buzuk as a point of departure. One of Moumneh’s
finest melismatic a cappella vocal performances opens the album, followed by
the uncharacteristically literal-titled “A Granular Buzuk”, where said instrument is
processed, re-sampled and otherwise disrupted through Radwan’s real-time
custom signal patches. “7ebr El 3oyoun” follows with languidly plaintive vocals
set against a gradually accelerating riff underpinned by hand percussion, and
Side One closes with a scabrous white noise intervention wherein the entire
audio mix is fed through a contact mic placed in Radwan’s mouth. Moumneh
continues to channel his love for Arabic pop and Casio/cassette culture on the
silky lo-fi dance of “Lau Ridyou Bil Hijaz?” which opens Side Two, then pays
homage to the until-recently-exiled Kurdish poet and singer Sivan Perwer on the
traditional-minded, unadorned folk tune “Ta3mani; Ta3meitu”. The album closes
with a tour-de-force drone piece built from Bansuri flute (performed by guest
player Dave Gossage), and a delicate acoustic number set against the sound of
waves recorded on a beach in Lebanon. (Song titles employ the transliterative
characters used in Arabic phone texting).
Coderre’s creation of the album artwork involved re-photographing images on
16mm film and then developing that film with bespoke chemical treatments of his
own discovery and invention; the cover images result from this entirely handmade
and analog process. The album art is also an extension of the JIMH raison
d’etre: the pursuit of innovative reciprocal relationships between celluloid film
and live music performance, and the preservation of and experimentation with
manual photographic methods and materials amidst a culture/tech industry that
encourages the obsolescence of celluloid.
If He Dies, If If If If If If is an adventurous, scrupulous, impassioned and highly
original work of modern contemporary Arabic music and a gratifying sign that
Jerusalem In My Heart is situating itself in recorded works with the same
thoughtful and dynamic intensity previously accessible only in live performances.
(Needless to say, JIMH continues to be a must-see live act as well
