A major figure in the independent music scene of her home country of Lebanon, Liliane Chlela came to a realization when she relocated to Montreal, Canada, in 2021. Faced with split expectations as an artist from the diaspora performing in a white-dominated music market—that she would either cater to tokenizing stereotypes with traditional arrangements or assimilate into generic club music—she opted to do neither. “Having had to relocate away from home has organically deepened my sense of ‘sonic identity,’ which does not fit neatly in the eclectic nor the niche electronic,” she says. 

I, the hybrid and the antidote finds Chlela delving into sound design, electronic beatmaking, and artistic collaboration in an effort to forge her own path and advance a complex dialogue about the politics and pains of migration. At its core, the project consists of a series of “Phases” in which she works with regionally-specific rhythms and scales, analyzing and dissecting them using synths, field recordings, and her computer. Intricate rhythms snap and ricochet in unexpected directions. Grainy streaks of distorted noise intermingle with mutated samples and haunted synths, creating an atmosphere of transfixing tension. Born out of spontaneous improvisational creation, the tracks bring to life an inner logic of vulnerable feelings and sonic musings. 

But the project doesn’t stop at just these recordings. To truly create the antidote to a bifurcated existence, Chlela will turn to a group of multi-instrumentalists and multi-disciplinary collaborators from her home region to bring the music to life. Cairo’s Nancy Mounir, Beirut’s Yara Asmar, and Montreal’s Radwan Ghazi Moumneh will join Chlela in the live premiere of I, the hybrid and the antidote at Le Guess Who? in Utrecht, Netherlands, on November 7, and Ancienne Belgique in Brussels, Belgium on November 12. Backed by the Flare Quartet (an Utrecht-based string quartet), the artists will fill out the recorded segments of Chlela’s “Phases” with deeper shadings and arrangements. The result will be a powerful expression of togetherness as their collective explorations transcend boundaries of genre, gender, and border. 

I, the hybrid and the antidote has been produced as part of Consortium Commissions, an initiative dedicated to spotlighting emerging artists from the Arab world, run by Brussels-based NGO Mophradat.