Mayssa Jallad’s Marjaa is a 12 song narrative based on The Battle Of The Hotels, one of the conflicts that, in 1975, took place at the start of the Lebanese Civil War. Here, Christian and Muslim militias fought for control of the St. Charles City Center in Beirut’s downtown district. Weaponising establishments like the Holiday Inn, the Phoenicia Inter-Continental, the Hotel St. Georges, the Melkart, the Palm Beach, the Excelsior, the Normandy, and the Alcazar, that once symbolised Lebanon’s economic boom. Repurposing the high-rise rooftops with rocket launchers and snipers. The war lasted 15 years, and divided the country into East and West down Damascus Street. Mayssa sometimes tells this story from the perspective of these buildings themselves. Mapping the city before the hotels, and then during the conflict. The tale rising through man-made storms, and segueing into the short calms that followed after. 

The album opens and closes with two lullaby-like moments. Etel is warm and intimate. Jallad accompanied only by Youmna Saba’s sparse, spare, oud. The production relishing her vocal’s natural resonance. Al Irth hits like a hymn, a prayer, surrounded by serene, theremin-thin sine waves, and an out of earshot field recorded speech. Fadi Tabbal’s sound design, treatments of Yara Asmar’s metallophone, ringing like a Tibetan singing bowl. In between the pieces feature contributions from more friends and local musicians, and incorporate elements of jazz, folk, and “avant” classical. Pascal Semerdijan’s drumming, for example, on Burj Al Murr and Holiday Inn is distinctly “free”. The former is all cymbals, snare rolls, and tumbling, then thumping, tom toms, while the latter is an abstract, almost serial composition for his orchestral timpani and Sary Moussa’s string-like synth swells. 

Mayssa’s voice is holy, haunting, throughout, as the music moves from the heavily processed – Kharita, where code crackles like furiously fanned flame – to the “organic” – the prettily picked, prancing, pirouetting, near medieval Baynana, whose dancing lyric recalls the Cocteau Twins’ Liz Frazer’s giddy glossolalia. Delicate drones are juxtaposed with forceful strum. Julia Sabra and Marwan Tohme’s triple-tracked harmonies exponentially increase the passion and emotion of Markaz Ahmar. On Al Hisar, Farah Kaddour’s buzuk, a traditional long-necked lute, is twisted into sublime, shape-shifting frequencies. Mudun’s dark drama churns like a Velvet Underground raga. An acoustic All Tomorrow’s Parties that peaks in screaming instruments and cinematic catharsis. Underlining Mayssa’s overriding plea, that the old order of “Reds versus Blues” be replaced with a new guard that advocates lasting peace. 

The vinyl version of Mayssa Jallad’s Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels is out now, as a collaboration between Ruptured Records and Six Of Swords – a new label run by FatCat family members Dave Howell and Marcus Thorne.