Genre: Dabke/minimal synth
From: Jerusalem, Palestine
An incredible, lo-fi electronic album that documents the Intifada of 1987, a civil uprising in protest of the occupation of Palestine. One of the few remaining copies was discovered amongst 5,000 cassettes purchased in 2020 by Mo‘min Swaitat of the label Majazz Project, and it was finally reissued in late 2021. Essential listening.
“Just one week after the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987, Riad brought his sisters Hanan, Alia and Nariman together in their living room and began recording The Intifada album on equipment he had made himself. One of these was co-written with their friend, the acclaimed Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish.
Riad printed 3000 copies of the cassettes which he began distributing in the Old City of Jerusalem and across the West Bank. The Israeli Army immediately confiscated all the copies they could find, the vast majority of which remain in the military archives to this day. Riad was arrested, interrogated and detained for several months.”
