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LP
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R 110LP
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Nour Mobarak's Dafne Phono is an adaptation of the first opera, Dafne, composed and written by Jacopo Peri and Ottavio Rinuccini in 1598. Drawing on the myth of Daphne and Apollo from Ovid's Metamorphoses -- a story of unrequited love, patriarchal possession, conquest, and transformation -- Mobarak's multimedia and multispecies reimagining splinters the opera's Italian libretto. Alongside English and Greek versions, it is translated into some of the world's most phonetically complex languages -- Abkhaz, San Juan Quiahije Eastern Chatino, Silbo Gomero, and !Xoon. In this process, the narrative -- and an artifact of Western culture -- is dismantled, metabolized, and rendered into unruly utterances that shape the sensorium as much as they do the capacity for sense-making. These voices are given material form by a cast of mycelium sonic sculptures whose rhizomatic compositions and broadcasted recordings resemble the formation and mutation of language over time, reconstituting speech into a new, polyphonic body politic, composed of voices whose striking, poetic utterances transfix and transcend meaning. The A-Side of the record presents a stereo version of Mobarak's 15-channel sound installation, Dafne Phono. The B-Side uses a recording of a portion of the translation process the libretto underwent in Namibia, live-processed by the artist. Dafne Phono is released in tandem with a book of the same name, published by Wendy's Subway.
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CD w/bk
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R 082CD
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Nour Mobarak's Sphere Studies and Subterranean Bounce is the catalog for her sculpture and audio installation, which adorned the steep hillside of Los Angeles's Hakuna Matata sculpture garden in the Fall of 2020. Eli Diner's press release reads; "Up on the hill, Mobarak presents two related bodies of work. The six Sphere Studies are part of her ongoing examination of the material and metaphoric possibilities of mycelium. Growing through a substrate in a rhizomatic system of hyphae, mycelium has its own kind of intelligence, one that opens the possibility of personal relationship. As a material it is versatile and malleable; only for those who understand it, however, will it work, assuming the ternary role of material, subject and studio assistant. Then there is a *five-channel sound installation emanating from the bowels of the earth. Subterranean Bounce is built from recordings of the movements of spheres of various sizes and densities [*a stereo mix is presented on the audio-CD in the back of the book]." An essay of gentle wit and fantasy by Hakuna Matata's Eli Diner -- along with a selection of Mobarak's poems --rotate the axis of this highly faceted art book. All enriched by the 40-minute spherical CD. This is the second edition of Mobarak's on Recital, the other being Father Fugue (R 066LP), her first LP published in 2019. Book: 102 pages, perfect bound 6″x6″ book, hand numbered. Limited edition of 80.
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LP
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R 066LP
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Recital label head Sean McCann on the record (June, 2019): "Father Fugue is Nour Mobarak's first full-length album. The Los Angeles-based artist spent years sculpting this LP, and the result is piercingly emotional. A foray into her being; a sound artist, a songstress, a sculptor. Nour's creativity orbits an ever-moving center. Thus, glimpses, reflections, and splinters of her oeuvre embody Father Fugue. The side-long titular piece on the LP is unlike anything I have ever heard. Nour describes the piece: 'the left channel of 'Father Fugue' is composed of conversations with my father, Jean Mobarak, a polyglot who has a 30-second memory and lives in the mountains of Lebanon. The right channel is composed of improvised song.' Nour and her father speak through four different languages (French, Italian, English, and Arabic), a full transcription and translation is included with the LP in a 24-page booklet. They speak of cars, of soccer, of Italy. They speak in games, in rhymes, and in song. The sonic division of voice and time across the stereo pattern is captivating. The second side of the album is comprised of eleven songs. The word 'song' must be taken widely and liberally in this instance. Elements were recorded in her car, in the shower, in the ruins of Oaxaca, Mexico: a rainbow of personal documentation. The vase holding the bouquet is of jubilation and abstract humor. A chanson written by Nour's great-great-grandmother, at the turn of the 20th century in Constantinople, is sung throughout the LP. The first side concludes with her and her father singing it in duet, as Nour's solo performance begins the second side. Bound by time, Father Fugue reveals Nour Mobarak's expression from and response to her father's place and memory. A flip of the record uncovers her expression and response to her own." 24-page libretto booklet (Arabic/French/Italian/English transcriptions and translations; credits/photo card; Edition of 250.
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