The iconic Lebanese-American indie-rock musician Hamed Sinno debuts their solo material for this year’s Shubbak Festival.
After leading up the most prominent indie-rock band of the Arab world Mashrou’ Leila, the prodigious composer returns to the stage with a new project co-commissioned by Shubbak Festival and the Barbican.
Poems of Consumption is a literary song cycle that explores the resonances between Amazon-era consumerism, mental illness, unrequited love, and environmental collapse, without purporting to have an alternative or moral high-ground. It’s a portrait of Nero, a desolate working-class melancholic crying at Whole Foods while the world outside comes to a boil. The compositions juxtapose the romanticism evoked by the sound of a string section, with hyper-industrial electronica created out of the sounds of consumerism (crumpling cellophane, bubble wrap, unboxing, ripping plastic) to swing between dancefloor & aural assault.
Co-commissioned by Shubbak Festival and the Barbican. Produced by MARSM. Supported by Arts Council England, Bagri Foundation, A.M. Qattan Foundation, British Council, English PEN, and Goethe Institute.
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