Faten Kanaan announces her fifth LP ‘Afterpoem’ – a mysterious, smudgy, bittersweet, and uniquely playful album. Deeply melodic, it continues her poignant exploration of counterpoint as a narrative tool.
New single ‘Ard Diar’ out today is named after the courtyard in traditional Damascene houses, it’s a bittersweet reflection on the link between architecture and memory. Minimal and haunting, the track juxtaposes the delicate intimacy of quotidian moments with the sweeping hand of time passing.
“It’s these small moments, often taken for granted, that echo the deepest”
From the repetitive structures of modern minimalism and early music/baroque influences – to more languid textural ebbs and tides, there’s a warmth in her use of synthesizers that gives the album a curiously timeless feel. Composing intuitively, her music has often been described as ‘strange’, mostly because it creates its own world- one that isn’t easily categorised.
The album’s title refers to the haze of a poem’s intended meaning being abstractly fleeting and barely graspable. Glistening threads of understanding still touch us – the poetry becoming intimately personal, and no further literal explanation is needed.
“I find pleasure in music as a language that nudges and hints. There’s a potential that lives in things left unsaid… meanings drifting in and out of focus… hovering like spirits. It’s a romantic and earnest album… of yearning for lost places and people, while still looking out at the world with tenderness and humour”.
This album traces the metaphysical threads connecting us. It’s about love: for people, for nature, for the world around us. Complex feelings are translated into tangible objects we extend to each other through words, actions, music.
It’s about being romantic in our approach to everything. About welcoming mysteries… being just on the edge of having answers, but not always needing them.
“Lets playfulness weave through her cinematic forms as orchestral tapestries, chamber folk and electronics commune.” MOJO magazine
