Sandy Chamoun – Sawt El Doumouh

Description

On her second album, Sawt El Doumouh (The Sound of Tears), Beirut-based Sandy Chamoun summons flickers of light from sadness. Influences from theArabic tradition of Tarab one of the first styles Chamoun learnt to sing and polyphonic Cantu are reinterpreted and reimagined through her voice andelectronics, synths from her SANAM and Ghadr bandmate Anthony Sayhoun, and live percussion from Ali Hout.
Marked by its times, the record isnt what Chamoun had planned. I wrote the lyrics between October 2023 and September 2025, she explains. The plan wasto write about nature, since the albums concept was inspired by Cantu, a tenor Sardinian ritual that celebrates humanitys victory over nature. I intended tovisit several places and regions in Lebanon and write a track for each, but after the genocide and the war in Lebanon, everything changed.I chose the title because many mornings during this period I woke up crying silently. I remember a dark story from school: a teacher yelled at a small boy
while he was crying and told him to cry without making any sound. I feel we are still living in that condition in the region forced to die or suffer withoutmaking any noise.
Sawt El Doumouh is a gorgeous refusal to be silent. It opens with a booming drum. Over keening autotune Chamouns pure voice cuts through, burying thedespair to illuminate rays of hope. On Ward W Shok a shuffling swing gives way to a righteous organ interlude. The title track sees a choir of Chamouns vocals lull and lap. Drums arrive and indignation stirs, whats mournful begins to stride.
Chamouns tracks are as beautiful as they are defiant. Why write songs in the face of horror? Perhaps because music can hold onto something better. Byturning to song, Chamoun catches the hopeful glints and sparks that persist and strive outside the terror. In SANAM and Ghadr she often borrows lyrics fromArabic writers through the centuries, listening to what their words say in the present while reminding us the world can and has been different to how it is now.Solo she writes her own words, and the way her songs alternately soar and sigh evokes hopeful pluralities and suggestions of other, kinder realities. Evenhearing someone cry is a connection to humanity.
Its a possibility conveyed in the albums most jubilant moments. Shahed is an incandescent dance of percussion and levitating synths. I wrote it after I sawa photo of a small boy on a horse on the beach in Gaza, Chamoun recalls. I imagined a fantasy where the boy lives in the water and watches the terrifyingreality on the shore, trying to bring water to put out the fire. Shahed is the witness who lives far from the shore, enjoying the water and trying to help. You canhear this duality: the percussion is desert-like, while the vocals and synths evoke the feeling of water.
Although it comes from darkness, in Chamouns music we can hear faith in something beyond it.

Tracklist

1. Khafiy
2. Wa
3. Shahed
4. Sawt El Doumouh
5. Shok W Ward
6. Ataba
7. Latife