BBIMF 2023

As a musician and composer, Ghassan released his first album titled Sharqi (My Orient) in 2017 and other instrumental singles for theater plays and podcasts. He performed in concerts and projects in France, Germany, Switzerland, UK, Australia, Italy, Azerbaijan, the Arab region and Lebanon. He is a member of the classical Arabic musical ensemble of the Université Antonine (UA), among other projects.
He is the co-founder and musical director of me’zaf musical cultural initiative for authentic Levantine music, and a researcher in the musical traditions of the Mašriq. He holds a PhD on the qānūn between practice and theory. He participated in many musicology conferences in France, Germany, Tunisia, Egypt, and Lebanon and he is a lecturer at the Lebanese American University (LAU) and the Université Antonine (UA) in Lebanon since 2011.

A versatile multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and composer, Nancy Mounir is a key member of Egypt’s alternative music scene. She contributes original music to theater productions, films, and international art installations. Mounir plays a range of instruments—including violin, piano, bass, Theremin, and the traditional Egyptian bamboo flute called the kawala—and in the process she has explored both the harmonic principles of the Western canon and the microtonal foundations of Arabic maqam (musical modes).
Lately she has stepped further into the limelight with her solo debut album (released on June 3, 2022, by Simsara Records), Nozhet El Nofous—a transcendent exploration of musical freedom through the lens of century-old archival recordings. She was born in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and now lives in Egypt’s capital, Cairo.

xlmxkhfi is the musical project of Beirut-based literary editor and audiovisual artist, Sarah Huneidi. By processing textures, vocals, and melodies on both hardware and computer, she weaves intricate and lush atmospheres punctuated with treated drums and submerged lyrics.

Julia Sabra and Fadi Tabbal’s duo is a visionary electronic dream pop, shapeshifting above ambient and industrial undercurrents. It is moody, unsettling, luminous – the culmination of a decade of collaboration and friendship between producer/musician/engineer Tabbal, and singer-songwriter/musician Sabra from indie trio Postcards.
Sabra and Tabbal began working on the record in the aftermath of the August 2020 port explosion, composing their first track ‘Roots’ for the Ruptured-curated series The Drone Sessions in the fall of 2020.

Sofyann Ben Youssef AKA Ammar808 is the mastermind behind the critically-acclaimed albums “Maghreb United” and “Global Control / Invisible Invasion,” not to mention his most recent project Bargou08.
Before setting basecamp in Denmark, he traveled a singular journey that made him the godfather of the Tunisian alternative and electronic scene. Bred as a musicologist in the corridors of Tunis’ Music Institute, he specializes in Arabic and Indian music. As an avid listener, he strives for bridges between oriental and occidental music.

The concerts will be followed by a showcase at the Goldroom, starting 12:40 AM

Noise Diva is an Amsterdam-based producer and DJ, Garage Noord resident, and co-founder at KLAB and SALWA foundation. Her musical stylings bridge together a variety of genres, from Moroccan trap to Egyptian R&B, French drill, dancehall, and UK garage, weaving together stories that transcend the dance floor, while ensuring that dancers stay hot on their toes. The ecstatic flow that she creates in her sets is always unexpected, and yet guaranteed to create intimate connections around the DJ booth.

Since she arrived in Paris at the age of 24, the Moroccan DJ known as GLITTER55 started operating in her own shining world. Her exploration into the electronic world began with an outstanding and organic performance at Les Transmusicales (Rennes) in 2018, embarking on a series of major festivals in France and overseas, like Nuits Sonores (Lyon and Brussels) or We Love Green, Techno Parade, Moga, or her session for Boiler Room at Festival Le Bon Air.

Manar is currently continuing her journey, brewing her own Western world and futurism of techno-boosted with breakbeats and gqom rhythms. Co-produced with fellows Cheb Runner and DeGrandito, her original tracks will be released this coming Spring.

Founder of The High Hats Community, and a true fanatic of everything bizarre. Samaya always aims to give the crowd something they have never heard before. From wacky vocals to the bounciest kicks to the occasional filthy amen breaks, Willillah is always having fun with it and making sure the crowd is always having the time of their lives.

Ali Abboud is a producer/songwriter based in Adloun, South Lebanon. He was one of the selected participants for our Fundamentals of Bedroom Music Production workshop, developed and taught by renowned rapper El Rass. 3Li has come a long way since then, producing beats for El Rass himself, in addition to the latter’s protégé, up-and-coming rapper Salloum.
3Li was a guest on The Ballroom Blitz’s lineup in December 2022, debuting his live act on the SP404-MKII at the Goldroom. From sampling old shia “latmiyet” to creating a new sound that reflects his roots, 3Li dabbles into Hiphop beats, Trap, Drill, Grime, Rage and more.

Singer-songwriter and author born in Tunis in 1993, originally from a small coastal city of the Tunisian sahel called Monastir. A town surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea on all sides, from which her stage name “Koast” is inspired, painted in blue just like the city of Monastir where she grew up. Alternating between academic and slang learning, Koast is remarkably impregnated with various musical genres from the classical school of ”Tarab” of Oum Kolthoum and Abdelwahab, to Jazz, Blues, and Hip-hop.

Tunisian rapper based in Tunisia, originally from a small city called Kasserine, 4LFA started writing at an early age, eventually turning to Rap as a therapeutic way of self-expression.
He is known for his unique verses and creatively-crafted beats. He has been making headlines with hits like “Beautiful”, “U Changed” and most recently “Men Fadhlek” that features Ta9chira and BROTHERHOOD. His latest album “Trips in Rehab” focuses on mental health and addiction, serving as an ode to “those who still care”, as he puts it.

Haykal is a writer, vocalist, MC, and a music producer based in Ramallah. Known for his lyricism and the variety of the different music he makes, he has been releasing music since 2012 and has released 3 EPs so far. He has collaborated with several musicians and artists from his hometown and the Arab world including Muqata’a, MakiMakkuk, Julmud, El Rass, Mehrak and Synaptik.
His most recent work is with Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme on their art project “May Amnesia Never Kiss Us On The Mouth”. He’s releasing his 4th EP in Spring 2023.

Gaouta is an electronic music composer based in Casablanca, Morocco. She launched her solo project after building a career as a drummer in France and Belgium, where she played with several bands since 2009. To the art of drumming, she now adds a mixture of 80’s synthesizers and Arabic songs.
Gaouta develops her very own rhythm theory and shapes new sound textures. Her sonic recipe is made of melancholic tones, analog and acoustic hybridization, under the title of Arabwave. Gaouta is currently working on a New Wave EP in darija.

Ko Shin Moon was born in 2017, at a crossroads between traditional Eastern strings and electronic music machines. Ko Shin Moon create otherworldly, hybrid melodies where psychedelia meets space disco. Their credo: eclecticism, cosmopolitanism and hybridity.
In this musical journey, repertoires, genres and times blend and form a new language. On stage, Ko Shin Moon’s fiery music pieces unfold to create an immersive listening and dancing experience.

NÂR (solo) is a Swiss Lebanese multi-instrumentalist and singer based in Beirut. In a constant metamorphosis, she works with various instruments, her voice, and different objects she finds. Abrasive and hypnotic, NÂR’s lives are sonic experiments and improvisations built up from A to Z, often led by short sentences on repeat like mantras. Her music takes its roots in a very large spectrum of sounds, inspiration or genre such as Middle Eastern and North African trance, industrial, electronic and grime music.
Lately playing with a set up essentially composed of clocks, carillons and other metallic objects, the musician is showing a new face with more radical directions and raw sounds.

Sanam is a free-rock post-folk sextet consisting of Sandy Chamoun, Antonio Hajj Moussa, Farah Kaddour, Anthony Sahyoun, Pascal Semerdjian and Marwan Tohme. The group first formed as part of a performance with Hans Joachim Irmler from the legendary German experimental group Faust, at the Irtijal music festival.
Their music and performances are akin to a ritual, a marriage and an exorcism of traditional Egyptian song/Arabic poetry and improvised rock, free jazz and noise. They recorded their first album in a traditional house in the village of Saqi Reshmaya set to come out early 2023.

An accomplished trumpet player, composer and producer, British-Bahraini artist, Yazz Ahmed, has long garnered global acclaim. Her album, La Saboteuse (Naim Records, 2017), scooped Jazz Album of the Year in The Wire magazine and achieved attention beyond the jazz world. Polyhymnia (2019) won multiple rave reviews, leading Downbeat Magazine to name her as one of the artists set to shape the future of jazz over the next decade.
Her career has been studded with high profile collaborations, including recording and performing with the likes of Radiohead, Lee Scratch Perry, These New Puritans, and composing for Jazz FM, Adult Swim and New York’s Festival of New Trumpet Music and more. Blending the spiritual sounds of the Middle East with the futuristic flavor of the UK’s contemporary jazz scene, Yazz’s music has been described as “Psychedelic Arabic Jazz, intoxicating and compelling”.

Most recently, she scooped up two glittering prizes at the Jazz FM Awards 2020 – UK Artist of the Year and Jazz Album of the Year for Polyhymnia. This was followed in November 2020 by the highly-prestigious Ivor Novello Award for Innovation in Composition.