Where sound and space meet you’ll find Mayssa Jallad, a Lebanese musician and architect whose work traverses hidden histories and events buried under the concrete bustle of Beirut’s urban sprawl and transforms them into music that is laced with intentionality and thoughtfulness. Motivated by the desire to share difficult collective histories with post-war youths who have had limited access to their city’s past, Jallad’s compositions seek to foster a sense of urgency and change for populations held captive by historical violence. Her experimental Arab folk sound weaves together gentle nylon guitar, swells of synthesis, faint treated piano, stirring above it all, her emotive vocals, both tender and resolute.
Jallad’s forthcoming music extends the trajectory of 2023’s Marjaa: The Battle of The Hotels, a record that explores an episode of urban warfare at the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War, wherein militias fought for control across Beirut’s skyscrapers. At Rewire 2026, Jallad will present music alongside her trio and, in a world premiere collaboration with Civilistjävel!, bring together the icy, tech-infused ambience of Civilistjävel!’s productions and the warm, gentle lustre of her voice – setting the stage for a striking collision of coexisting forces.
In conversation with Jallad, Rewire asked about the crossroads of architecture and music in her work, the challenges of translating history and trauma into sound, how her forthcoming music continues and diverges from The Battle of the Hotels, and the surprises audiences can expect at Rewire 2026, including her world premiere collaboration with Civilistjävel!
Between your architectural research and your musical output, your practice has a rich multidisciplinary approach. Does traversing these different fields of study and practice come naturally to you? And what kind of challenges arise in this approach?
Both disciplines do come naturally to me, that's why I had a hard time letting go of either of them, that's why I created Marjaa. I actually left New York City in 2018 because living in the city on a strict work visa was forcing me to choose a conventional path as an architect, without time to make music.
In research, I love the feeling of uncovering an unknown history. In music, I love the feeling of stitching lyrics to a melody. There's magic in both. It's often a back and forth between lyric-writing, research-writing, and music-writing. The challenge is that it takes a longer time to write research-based music – that I hold myself accountable in my lyrics, more. It's not (just) about my feelings; it's about a common history of place that I'm trying to write. So it's a responsibility. It needs to be accurate and referenceable. That's why the project is called Marjaa, which means “reference” or “source” in Arabic.
Your album Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels (2023) explored an episode of urban warfare at the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War. Can you speak to the ways that trauma and history affect ways of listening, in your experience? And what kind of sensitivities, responsibilities, and concerns factor into a process of translating violent histories into a new form – such as music?
Does historical trauma, meaning a “past” trauma that our society has lived through affect our way of listening? Maybe we have preconceived ideas about this trauma, based on overheard memories from friends and family. Maybe we are reluctant to remember, when we are traumatised, even if this was long ago . . . we would rather not listen. But music has the capacity to sublimate trauma and pain. To me anyway, it's been my refuge more than once. So Marjaa allowed me to experiment with that, to try to heal the pain of the city. The music helped express the devastation I felt uncovering the violence my people had been through and had inflicted upon each other. I tried to write the lyrics as a poetic form of my master’s thesis, a highly referenced, academic text that I researched rigorously, cross-referencing sources from oral histories, newspapers, and military documents.
We hear that you’re working on a follow-up to The Battle of the Hotels. In that album you worked a lot with personification of architecture. Can you share a bit about what drew you to that approach?
I remember trying to find a point of view when I was starting to write the music of the battle. Was I an omniscient narrator observing a map from above? That sounded a bit removed, a bit pretentious too. I needed to be in the event, but not speak in the name of a militia. So I tried what I did in my song “Madina min Baeed,” where I sang “as” the city itself. And it clicked. For narrating the battle, I was going to embody a different building with every song.
In what ways does your forthcoming music follow on from The Battle of the Hotels and in which ways do their paths diverge?
The forthcoming music speaks about several events and places instead of one. But it is still in the practice of uncovering violent histories, as well as their relation to the present day. I'm dealing with disputed events, so my challenge is to try to express this ambiguity and controversy to inform a historical narrative.
At Rewire 2026, as well as playing with your trio, you will present a world premiere performance with Civilistjävel!, who reworked your Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels into a minimal, dubbed-out electronic snowscape, released in 2025. What can the Rewire audience expect from this performance?
This performance will be a ghost of the Battle of the Hotels, through the lens of an outside observer . . . expect a conversation.
Mayssa Jallad performs at Rewire 2026 with her trio on Friday 10 April, and on Sunday 12 April with Civilistjävel!, in a world premiere. Book now via rewirefestival.nl/tickets