Tag: Sandmoon

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Sandmoon Shares Atmospheric and Heartbreaking Ode to Loss

Beirut-based outfit Sandmoon — Sandra Arslanian (vocals, guitar), Sam Wehbi (guitar), George Flouty (bass) and Dan Shurki (drums) — have developed and honed a unique take on indie rock that draws from the Arslanian’s multicultural, international background: the Sandmoon frontperson is Armenian-Lebanese and was born in Beirut and spent her formative years in Belgium. 

Throughout their growing catalog, which includes 2014’s full-length debut, Home, 2016’s #InTheEnd EP, 2018’s Put A Gun/Commotion EP and 2020’s Fadi Tabbal-produced sophomore album Put A Gun/Commotion, the members of the Beirut-based quartet have infused Western indie rock with subtle Middle Eastern intonations and melancholy and an unerring sense of melodicism. 

Adding to a growing profile in their native Lebanon, the band wrote the soundtrack to Phillipe Aractingi’s 2016 film Listen, which received Best Soundtrack Award at 2017’s Lebanese Movie Awards.

Sandmoon’s Sandra Arslanian has also been very busy with a number of side projects including “Odyssée, Ode to the City” with poet Corinne Boulad, which has been selected in festivals in Beirut, Germany, Italy, Greece and California — and has won Best Spoken Word Poetry Award at the Monologues & Poetry International Film Festival.

Sandmoon’s highly-anticipated third album While We Watch the Horizon Sink is slated for release later this year. Earlier this year, I wrote about the album’s first single, the slow-burning “Wake Up.” Centered around painterly, shoegaze textures, Arslanian’s plaintive vocals, cinematic keys paired with a soaring hook, the song, which the band describes as sounding “like a crossover of Radiohead and Laura Marling with an imperceptible Middle Eastern flavor,” but to my ears recalls the likes of Cocteau Twins and Slowdive.

As the band explained, the song is “about looking beyond the surface, going to the essence of things.” 

While We Watch the Horizon Sink‘s latest single “Where Do We Go from Here” continues a remarkable run of atmospheric material rooted in patient, painterly textures and dream-like melodies that sonically brings both Beach House-like dream pop and A Storm in Heaven-era shoegaze to mind. “‘Where Do We Go From Here,’ is a melodic indie pop song about seeking guidance from a trusted person. The person might have a mental condition (like Alzheimer), yet it is her guidance within, her guidance to our hearts, that is sought,” the members of Sandmoon explain.

Directed by Lujain Jo, the accompanying video is a hazy and nostalgic dream of a loved one, who has departed — or is extremely ill. Capturing that loved one in their fullness of their lives, and others in their youth, imbues the video with a heartbreaking sense of a loss, grief and love.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Beirut’s Sandmoon Shares a Cinematic Visual for Slow-Burning and Shoegazey “Wake Up”

Beirut-based outfit Sandmoon — Sandra Arslanian (vocals, guitar), Sam Wehbi (guitar), George Flouty (bass) and Dan Shurki (drums) — have developed and honed a unique take on indie rock that draws from the Arslanian’s multicultural, international background: the Sandmoon frontperson is Armenian-Lebanese and was born in Beirut and spent her formative years in Belgium.

Throughout their growing catalog, which includes 2014’s full-length debut, Home, 2016’s #InTheEnd EP, 2018’s Put A Gun/Commotion EP and 2020’s Fadi Tabbal-produced sophomore album Put A Gun/Commotion, the members of the Beirut-based quartet have infused Western indie rock with subtle Middle Eastern intonations and melancholy and an unerring sense of melodicism.

Adding to a growing profile in Lebanon, the band wrote the soundtrack to Phillipe Aractingi’s 2016 film Listen, which received Best Soundtrack Award at 2017’s Lebanese Movie Awards.

Sandmoon’s Sandra Arslanian has also been very busy with a number of side projects including “Odyssée, Ode to the City” with poet Corinne Boulad, which has been selected in festivals in Beirut, Germany, Italy, Greece and California — and has won Best Spoken Word Poetry Award at the Monologues & Poetry International Film Festival.

Sandmoon’s highly-anticipated third album While We Watch the Horizon Sink is slated for release later this year. The album’s first single, the slow-burning and atmospheric “Wake Up” is centered around painterly and shoegazer-like textures: twinkling synth arpeggios, slashing, reverb-drenched guitars, Arslanian’s plaintive vocals, cinematic keys paired with a soaring hook. While the band describes the song as sounding “like a crossover of Radiohead and Laura Marling with an imperceptible Middle Eastern flavor,” the song sonically to my ears recalls shoegaze titans like Cocteau Twins and Slowdive.

The band explains that the song is “about looking beyond the surface, going to the essence of things.”

Directed by Selim Mourad, the accompanying video for “Wake Up” is shot in a gloriously cinematic black and white and captures small every day details — a woman and her child folding laundry on the terrace, clothes in the spin cycle of a washer before following what appears to be a religious cleansing ceremony, complete with women patiently whispering comforting things.

“I believe suffering stops when we open our eyes,” Mourad explains. “As most of us keep struggling, we can rest assured that we are nonetheless never unattended, never alone. Beautiful beings, often through their feminine energy, are patiently whispering the sweet words of remembrance in our ears.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Lebanese Indie Rock Act Sandmoon Releases a Gorgeously Shot Meditation on Love, Loss and Grief

Sandmoon is a rising Beirut, Lebanon-based indie rock/folk act led by its Armenian-Lebanese-born, Belgium-raised frontperson Sandra Arslanian and featuring Sam Wehbi (guitar), George Flouty (bass) and Dani Shukri (drums). With the release their of their earliest batch of work — 2014’s full-length debut, Home, 2016’s #InTheEnd EP, their work writing the original soundtrack for Philippe Aractingi’s 2017 Lebanese Movie Award-winning film Listen and 2018’s Put A Gun/Commotion EP, the members of Sandmoon have developed a reputation for crafting material that draws heavily from Arslanian’s multicultural background while being hopeful and infused with an unerring sense of melodicism. 

The Beirut-based indie rock quartet begins 2020 with their their latest single “Angels,” the second single off the band’s forthcoming Fadi Tabbal-produced album Put A Gun/Commotion, which is slated for release later this year. Centered around lush layers of gently fuzzy guitars, shimmering and atmospheric synths and Arslanian’s tender vocals, and gorgeous layered harmonies, the Beirut-based indie rock quartet’s latest single manages to recall — to my ears, at least — Stories From The City, Stories From the Sea-era PJ Harvey. But at its core, Sandmoon’s  latest single is imbued with an aching longing.  “Angels’ is about absoluteness. It’s listening to your higher self, your angels and fully living your  life, with absolute  love. For love is the only true thing that remains when everything else disappears,” the band’s Sanda Arslanian emphatically explains in press notes. 

Directed by Tracy Karam, the recently released and incredibly cinematic video for “Angels” was shot in Beirut and stars Daniel Aboushakra as a young boy, who experiences profound and intense grief after his mother’s death. The video follows the boy as he makes a gradual transition from hurt, heartbreak and shock to acceptance through love — primarily through the loving presence of his father, his love of music and the boy’s own love of his mother. “It’s a an emotional video about mourning and absolute love,” Tracy Karam says in press notes. “It portrays a twelve-year-old boy trying to cope with the sudden, devastating loss of a parent by finding his way on his own. The pain forces him to face reality, in all its harshness and brutality. Yet in the midst of the chaos, there are moments of love, sparks of light that help him move on and replenish the emptiness.” 

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