By Night and Day in Bourj Hammoud is the very first EP in an ongoing series of field recordings conducted by EastEast contributors around the world. Recordings will be hosted on our Bandcamp page, where listeners can experience examples of contemporary musical ethnographies and read their accompanying descriptions. In the liner notes of this first album, author Scott McCulloch describes the unique environment in which he made these recordings, one of Lebanon’s most densely populated and diverse neighborhoods.
Bourj Hammoud was a swamp before settlement. Fleeing the genocide and death marches in the early 20th century, Armenians came to the northern gateway of Beirut, Lebanon, and built shacks and shanties along the riverbank that once split the city before it continued to sprawl. The township subsequently underwent an anarchic urban development.
Needless to say, the municipality is a vibrant environment. UNHCR tarpaulins stretch as curtains across balconies brandishing both the Armenian and Nagorno-Karabakh flags. Clothes and sheets hang between tangled power lines alongside white plastic chairs holding down rugs drying on balconies above sports cars, street vendors, and markets. While Armenians make up the majority (approx. 150,000) of Bourj Hammoud, various ethnicities move and comprise the flow of the area—one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the Middle-East. These include Lebanese, Kurds, Syrians, Filipinos, Ethiopians, and more.
As such, these recordings attempt to convey the variance of music of Bourj Hammoud. They were recorded in people’s homes, and in the basement of the Armenian Evangelical School. This small selection of private performances is a window into the everyday sound of a community. Often accompanied with other family members, friends, belly dancers, curious neighbors and schoolchildren, the instrumentalists range from professional wedding players to musicians who have been playing their instrument with high prowess after only a few years.
The instruments featured include doumbekdoumbekA single-head membranophone with a goblet-shaped body.
, accordion, duduk, qanunqanunA large zither with a thin trapezoidal soundboard., electric saz, and voice. Recorded in the summer of 2021, this EP is a portrait of the daily musical life of one of Bourj Hammoud’s northern streets, just before the city limit is cut by the Dora bus station interchange.
All photos courtesy of Scott McCulloch
