Let’s start with a basic assumption: A band based in Beirut, whose CD sleeves are a whirl of Arabic lettering, whose lyrics are written in a Lebanese dialect — that’s one for the world music pile, right?
Wrong.
If there’s one thing Mashrou’ Leila excel at, it’s confronting and dismantling assumptions. The loose collective of students who began jamming together in 2008 at the American University of Beirut has gradually focused into an ambitious, fiercely articulate quintet: vocalist/lyricist Hamed Sinno, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Firas Abou Fakher, violinist Haig Papazian, drummer Carl Gerges, and bassist Ibrahim Badr. And the music they make has focused, too, into a charged, atmospheric version of pop that is geographically impossible to place. You hear it the moment Ibn el Leil’s ‘Aeode’ begins with an assured yet restless bassline, bruised by the memory of dancing all night to Blondie and Joy Division; a shuffle-snap rhythm; synth notes that scan the scene like searchlights; a violin picking its way across rubble, and finally, after two full minutes of building intensity, a voice, breathy and unearthly. This isn’t a song or an album to limit to known categories: it’s music that might reshape the world.
And it’s music that has been capturing people across the world. Arab audiences are already huge: 10,000 people at shows in Egypt, 5,000 in Beirut and Dubai. And word is spreading: in December 2015 they played to a rapturous, sold-out audience in London’s Barbican, and in 2016 made their first visit to the US, wowing crowds in Brooklyn, Washington, and LA — crowds not just of expats but people with no Arabic background, let alone language skills.
On stage, they are a great live band: lithe, alluring, and just the right side of belligerent. Unsurprisingly, their authority-baiting discourse both in interview and lyrics has begun to provoke a reaction: “actual restrictions,” says Fakher, “like us not being able to perform in certain places in the Arab world.” But this is one assumption that’s safe to hold on to: that a band this great on stage are destined for stardom, no matter what pile their CD is slipped on to.