Snakeskin mit They Kept Our Photographs

The duo Snakeskin from Beirut (Image: Rachel Tabet)

Mo. 28.10.2024

Album of the week: Snakeskin with They Kept Our Photographs

Snakeskin from Beirut have written an album of extremes with their second LP They Kept Our Photographs. The texts were written during the war against Gaza. And so you hear anger, sadness, bewilderment on the one hand – hope and love as a form of resistance on the other. by Danielle Burgin

24.10.28 ADW Snakeskin

Snakeskin from Beirut talk to us about war, anger, hope and the power of music

“This is an album of extremes, created in Beirut – a city of extremes. Oppressive silence, deafening noise. tenderness and anger. Extreme violence, extreme love. Extreme beauty. Deep sadness,” explains Julia Sabra, singer of Snakeskin, to Radio October 31st a concert.

Julia Sabra is a Lebanese musician, songwriter, composer and sound engineer. She is also the lead singer, lyricist, co-composer and multi-instrumentalist of the dream pop/shoegaze trio *Postcards*. Your duo partner Say Tabbalis often referred to as “the hardest working man in Lebanon’s alternative music scene.” He is a Lebanese musician, producer and sound engineer who founded the… Tunefork Studio founded – Beirut’s most respected independent recording studio.

Snakeskin describes itself as “electronic dream pop that morphs into ambient and industrial currents. Lyrically, singer and songwriter Julia Sabra delves into new depths: “We had barely started writing this album when the war against Gaza began, which had a strong influence on the writing. We were glued to our screens, watching Palestinians being massacred around the clock and feeling completely helpless; these images haunted us in nightmares at night. Many of the songs are about these horrors, about racism, about what it means to be Arab in this time, and about clinging to love in order to get through it all psychologically.” But now Beirut is also under Bombardment. When Snakeskin aren’t working on their music, they support NGOs that support the Lebanese people.

Musically, producer and multi-instrumentalist Fadi Tabbal is moving in new directions – expanding the duo’s industrial, droney ambient spectrum to include influences from hyperpop and electronica. Their debut marked the culmination of a decade of collaboration and friendship between Tabbal and Sabra, who met in 2013 while Sabra was recording at Tunefork Studios. Tabbal says: “I was immediately drawn to Julia’s understated voice, which reminded me of my favorite singers like Broadcast’s Trish Keenan. I worked closely with Julia’s band Postcards for over a decade, producing all of their albums, before she and I finally decided to try something new that took us both outside our usual ruts.”

The duo released their second album They Kept Our Photographs on October 11, 2024 at the London label Mais Um.

The situation in Lebanon is tense. On the night of Friday, October 25th, attacks with deaths and injuries were reported again. Amid the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, many people in the country are trying to continue life as best they can. Click here for the report the freelance SRF journalist Stefanie Glinski.