Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, alongside fellow Montreal artist Charles-André Coderre, returns with If He Dies, If If If If If If, a second full-length album from his acclaimed Jerusalem In My Heart (JIMH) project, conceived and recorded in his dual homes of Montréal and Beirut. Known for his production and engineering work with artists as diverse as Matana Roberts (all three chapters of her Coin Coin recordings to date), Mashrou’ Leila, Ought, Eric Chenaux (with whom he also released a collaborative album for the Grapefruit Records Club) and Suuns (with whom he also released a collaborative album on Secretly Canadian in spring 2015), Moumneh has been firing on all cylinders over the past few years. He has brought JIMH to mesmerized live audiences in Canada, Europe and the Middle East since the release of his first album in 2013, following many years during which the project was a strictly Montréal-based live/theatrical happening. While JIMH continues to expand to include a larger cast of players for select engagements and commissions, the group is currently an immersive and performative audio-visual duo at its core, with Moumneh responsible for all sound/composition and Coderre creating 16mm visuals and live projections/installations. Moumneh expands his compositional palette on If He Dies, If If If If If If, exploring new deconstructions and juxtapositions of both traditional and popular Arab musical currents, with an album that oscillates between powerfully emotive vocal tunes and instrumental works that primarily make use of Radwan’s expressive acoustic playing on buzuk as a point of departure. One of Moumneh’s finest melismatic a cappella vocal performances opens the album, followed by the uncharacteristically literal-titled “A Granular Buzuk”, where said instrument is processed, re-sampled and otherwise disrupted through Radwan’s real-time custom signal patches. “7ebr El 3oyoun” follows with languidly plaintive vocals set against a gradually accelerating riff underpinned by hand percussion, and Side One closes with a scabrous white noise intervention wherein the entire audio mix is fed through a contact mic placed in Radwan’s mouth. Moumneh continues to channel his love for Arabic pop and Casio/cassette culture on the silky lo-fi dance of “Lau Ridyou Bil Hijaz?” which opens Side Two, then pays homage to the until-recently-exiled Kurdish poet and singer Sivan Perwer on the traditional-minded, unadorned folk tune “Ta3mani; Ta3meitu”. The album closes with a tour-de-force drone piece built from Bansuri flute (performed by guest player Dave Gossage), and a delicate acoustic number set against the sound of waves recorded on a beach in Lebanon. (Song titles employ the transliterative characters used in Arabic phone texting). Coderre’s creation of the album artwork involved re-photographing images on 16mm film and then developing that film with bespoke chemical treatments of his own discovery and invention; the cover images result from this entirely handmade and analog process. The album art is also an extension of the JIMH raison d’etre: the pursuit of innovative reciprocal relationships between celluloid film and live music performance, and the preservation of and experimentation with manual photographic methods and materials amidst a culture/tech industry that encourages the obsolescence of celluloid. If He Dies, If If If If If If is an adventurous, scrupulous, impassioned and highly original work of modern contemporary Arabic music and a gratifying sign that Jerusalem In My Heart is situating itself in recorded works with the same thoughtful and dynamic intensity previously accessible only in live performances. (Needless to say, JIMH continues to be a must-see live act as well

The fourth studio album and seventh release on the Belgian avant--àgarde label Sub
Rosa, 'From Somewhere Invisible' (2019) embraces the new. Leaving aside for a while the
logbooks of long journeys and the field recordings of the previous albums, the music of
OISEAUX--àTEMPÊTE (Frédéric D. Oberland, Stéphane Pigneul, Mondkopf, Jean-- Michel
Pirès, Jessica Moss and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh) unfolds as a twilight and prophetic
orchestra around G.W.Sok's punctuated voice. The poems of Mahmoud Darwish, Ghayath
Almadhoun and Yu Jian question the modern man and his double, the strange and foreign,
the fragmented real, the violence, society and its mirror. The eyes we hide behind, the
ones we should open. These intimate compasses which can make us rise together in the
midst of shrouded ruins; there is always a black raven to defy the horizon. Edited and
mixed between Montreal and Paris, 'From Somewhere Invisible' summons the fever of
experimentation and the powerful sound of the game coming together in the service of a
luxuriant and psychedelic drift. Synthetic brass meets hammered rhythms, string electrics
with cracked electronics, saxophone cries and laughter at a pulsing and seminal bass. In
this moment of change, there are always the flashes of light, musical communion and the
collective hypnosis grasped between ideas. From one sea to another, the gathering sound,
the gathering glow, comes together. Desire, the great fire, at the four corners dancing like
fireflies, ready to open the map of the world.

Jesus is my son has re-recorded the 4-titles ‘Sacrifices Odieux’. 6 extra tracks were also recorded. The album was released in March on FF HHH & Cheap Satanism Records. (100 cassettes & digitals). A second album has been recorded this summer: SOLAH #2. The album will be released in a near future on the label ini.itu.   FUTURE   Some other albums are in the pipeline. One should be recorded before end 2015. This album will be the first album with some improvisation parts between the classical Jesus is my son sound and the German band Popol-Vuh.   STORY   Jesus is my son is the solo project of Grégory Duby. The project is a listening of string vibrations, the music is melancholic with space to escape. A pure moment of inner contemplation.   Grégory Duby is a guitarist from Brussels (BE) active in the field of rock and improvised music. Besides his project Jesus is my son, he plays in the loud band Zoho and previously in the trio K-branding. He records albums of improvised and noise music. He creates the label FF HHH and is one of the mainstays of Mandaï Distribution.   With Jesus is my son, Grégory wants to approach the idea of immortality, to render each moment eternal. Thanks to this slowness or pattern repetitions, the time stretches itself and eternity may rush into these free spaces. The first release of Jesus is my son is the 4-title ‘Sacrifice Odieux’. The music of this EP is hot, suffocating, slow and desertic. April 2010, the album ‘Je suis Dieux’ is issued. With this second release, Jesus is my son’s music becomes more mystic, more aggressive, more distorded. The sound and the themes are close to Olivier Messiaen’s church organ music.   In February 2012, the second full album named ‘1914-1918’ is released. The subject of the album is the great war. This album is not about battles or politics. The scope of the album is outside the action. It relates the lifes of the soldiers between battles, the survival in the trenches, the fear to disappear. It tells also about decimated families, about the long silences before the fights. With this album the war is told through its non-events and gives it its real dramatic meaning.   In March 2015 and 9 years after the first EP: ‘Sacrifices Odieux’. the album is re-recorded and 6 extra tracks are added. The new songs were composed during the years following the 4-titles. Some tracks were finalized quite quick, some others were re-worked from time to time until now. This release as the 4-titles is an album of contemplation. An heavy, minimal and sweet album.   Jesus is son was invited by the American band Codeine to open there shows in Belgium and in the Netherlands. Jesus is my son has also played with Stephen O’malley, Extra Life, Josef van Wissem, Cian Nugent, Neokarma Jooklo Trio, Carla Bozulich, Amen Dunes, Steve Gunn, …   RELEASES   Sacrifices Odieux revisited (Full album Cassette / 2015 / FF HHH & Cheap Satanism records) 1914-1918 (Full album CD / 2012 / FF HHH) Je suis Dieu (Full album CD-R / 2010 / FF HHH) Sacrifices Odieux (4-Title CD-R / 2006 / FF HHH)