“Radio Afloat” - Layale Chaker & Sarafand (In a Circle Records, 2024)
“Radio Afloat”, the follow-up to Chaker’s celebrated debut album “Inner Rhyme”, is “the vision of a radio lost at sea, evoking a reflection on the intertwined destinies of people and the natural world, which manifest even louder in times of collective pain;” explains Layale. Featuring her chamber jazz quintet Sarafand, the album is conceived as a suite of intersecting movements. Echoing Lebanese author Ounsi el-Hage’s poem “The Trace of Blue Passion”, it is “a commentary on the ebb and flow of politics of power, conflict and dominance that exacerbate the vulnerability of the land and those who tend to it. Through this exploration, I hope to illuminate the delicate balance in the interplay between human agency and environmental resilience. The radio lost at sea becomes a vessel for introspection, prompting us to confront the consequences of our choices and the urgency of collective action. In the face of adversity, it is a reminder of our shared responsibility to nurture and protect the planet that sustains us all.”
Album Credits:
Layale Chaker, violin - Jake Charkey, cello - Sam Minaie, bass - John Hadfield, drums
Recorded at the Bunker Studios, Brooklyn
Produced by Layale Chaker, Phillip Golub and Sam Minaie
Mixing and Mastering: Sam Minaie
Visual art: Kevork Mourad
Label: In a Circle Records
"Vigil" - ETHEL & Layale Chaker (In a Circle Records, 2024)
“Vigil” documents the fruitful collaboration between the new-music string quartet ETHEL and Layale Chaker. Each member of ETHEL contributes a piece and Chaker herself contributes two works, one of which composition gives this album its name.
“The drive behind “Vigil” was born out of a visceral need to react, express and articulate thoughts and emotions that overcame me during the first weeks after the start of the October 2019 revolution in Lebanon,” says Layale. “This revolution, born out of decades and decades of
systematic oppression, left me paralyzed for months, unwilling and unable to write any music. It soon appeared to me that this paralysis had been a constant state in which I, and many of us, find refuge, in an attempt to go on with our lives as normally as possible in an increasingly
unjust and hostile world. Every reason to be absolutely revolted and angry is given to us each morning by the decision-makers of our world”, Yet anger is a consuming feeling; and we tend to shy away from it as fast as possible in response to our heightened and triggered emotions.
The common response as a result tends to be the taming down of this anger with numbness, passive resentment, and apathy. Through “Vigil” I come back to anger, willingly. I embrace it, not as a destructive force, but as a means of self- determination. The piece is an ode to those who
flood the streets with courage in all corners of the world, and an ode to the resilience we all carry within us.”
Album Credits :
Layale Chaker, violin - Kip Jones, violin - Corin Lee, violin - Dorothy Lawson, cello - Ralph Farris, viola
Recorded at Kaleidoscope Studios, New Jersey
Recording, Producing, Mixing and Mastering : Immersive Sound Project (Jesse Lewis)
Visual art; Kevork Mourad
Label : In a Circle Records
"INNER RHYME" OUT NOW
"Inner Rhyme" (In a Circle Records, 2019)
Violinist and composer Layale Chaker's debut album Inner Rhyme is woven as a suite that explores aesthetics of Arabic poetry. Composed between Beirut, Paris and London over the past two years and recorded in New York over the summer of 2018, the album unveils musical threads that are mapped through the rhythmical cycles of the twelve classical Arabic poetic meters, the fluidity of oral and free forms, the abstraction of language into the physical contour of verses and the percussive potential of words.
Beyond expression, the composition process tries to capture the shape and essence of epic testimonials on life, death, war and love that make the heart of Arabic poetry.
"Inner Rhyme" was awarded the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture 2018 Grant.
Album Credits :
Jake Charkey, cello - Phillip Golub, piano - Nick Dunston, bass - Adam Maalouf, percussion.
Recorded at The Rift Studio, Brooklyn, New York
Recording & Producing : Radwan Ghazi Moumneh
Mixing : Radwan Ghazi Moumneh at Hotel2Tango, Montreal
Mastering : Harris Newman, Grey Market Mastering
Illustration, visual conception, design : Joseph Kai
Label : In a Circle Records
This recording was made possible by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture Grant (AFAC) 2018.