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Week #32 - The Palestine edition

TL;DR: I'm running a weekly newsletter with 5 songs and a short description, and a matching Spotify playlist if you want to subscribe.

For the non-Spotify readers, there is a Youtube link for each of the songs on the cover.
Listen to all the songs on Spotify

Hello everyone!

Week 32!

Another week of sad news headlines and another endless downward spiral of violence between Israel and Palestine. I appreciate that politics are difficult (even impossible) to evade when writing about this topic (especially considering how little I know about it). I'm trying to keep this week's selection of bands focused on peace rather than politics.

I hope you enjoy it!

Le Trio Joubran - The Age Of Industry
 

Le Trio Joubran is three brothers descending from a family of « Oud » (Arabic lute) makers and players for four generations... the grand grand-father, the grandfather, the father and now the son. Their most recent album brings much more occidental influence in their music, including a featuring from Pink Floyd's Roger Waters.

DAM -  Emta Njawzak Yamma (When will we marry you?)

DAM is the Palestinian hip-hop pioneer. The members met in Lod, a mixed Arab/Jewish city southeast of Tel Aviv. DAM stands for both "eternity" in Arabic and "blood" in Hebrew… or just Da Arabian MCs in hip-hop ­parlance.

They are rapping in English, then Hebrew and Arabic. Their international is growing, especially here in the UK. They started to write initially about the Arab-Israeli conflict obviously, but equally about broader peace movements and some of the social challenges faced by a Palestinian woman under occupation. 

TootArd - Laissez Passer

TootArd (Arabic for strawberries) are the younger, cooler kids of this booming musical scene. They are from the Golan heights, playing some psychedelic blues rock, morphed reggae and classical Arabic melodies (very influenced by Tinariwen, the Tuareg blues rock stars). Very upbeat, infused with Middle Eastern dance floor beats :-)

Khalas - Mijwiz

Khalas (Arabic for enough) is a Palestinian rock band with grunge/metal influences (you know me too well now :-)) They combine Arabic lyrics, traditional Arab instruments, and beats with modern and aggressive heavy metal. 

Orphaned Land - Let the truce be known

The Israeli band on this week's playlist. Orphaned Land is Israel's most prominent heavy metal band (with a strong folk influence).
They are constantly pushing a message of positivity and Jewish-Arabic solidarity. To this extent, they have won several peace awards, including for their joint European tour with Khalas in 2013 or for releasing music on the same record in 2021.
Until the next time, Godspeed!
Thomas

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