I was fourteen or fifteen the first time I heard Fairouz, at my neighbour Abdelrahman's place, in the morning, and he said morning was the right time for her. I went home and looked for more. The same Abdo also pointed me to Mozart, and to Hugh Laurie's piano, which didn't land.

The oud starts playing and I end up somewhere I could still get to, at least in theory, except nobody would be waiting there. Most days, I just avoid it. I picked that up from Muhammed Ewis, one night, he played me song after song.

It came on by mistake on the office speakers, from an Apple Music playlist. Rana, at work, was the one who noticed and said she loved it; I went back later and listened properly. I still love it for that quiet entrance.

I found Fadwa when I was digging around for a clean recording of Abu Tammam’s السيف أصدق أنباء من الكتب. That was maybe three years ago, but I can’t pin down the exact year. Later, I heard more of her voice through Mamdouh El Gebaly’s work, and I started getting a feel for what old Arabic poetry actually sounded like Mukhariq and Ziryab.

I first came across Neveroddoreven thanks to Mr. Robot. After that, I went looking for more. “Sunny Delights” is the one I want to hear by the sea. Their “Daydream” feels a lot like American Beauty (1999); I’ve never seen anyone talk about that connection.

Still my Cohen album. I discovered him through “Sing Another Song, Boys” while I was supposed to be studying biochemistry, stalking Ahmed Sherpiny’s Spotify to see what he was listening to. At first, I wasn’t sold; I stuck with it, split between annoyance and something like conversion. #Leonard Cohen

First heard through V for Vendetta (2005), but it just floated past me back then. It took Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine for it to actually land. I don’t put it on much—it demands too much from the room. #Tchaikovsky #Russia #Ukraine

I found it through Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, one of the first films I really remember, cafés, staircases, a photo booth, tiny rituals. I don’t trust the film the way I did as a kid. The music still keeps that door cracked open.

R sent it without any context—which was a usual way—just dropping things he means. Faraj Suleiman is a pianist from the Galilee, Majd Kayyal wrote the lyrics, and they made it in December 2020. The title spells out the point, Haifa, gentrified and mostly emptied of Palestinians since 1948, still beats Berlin. It’s still better than the exile people leave for. #Palestine

A guy called Omar Khaled shared this once, and then it dropped out of. DISCriminate is the double album Douglas P. put together for Death In June’s 1997 US tour—thirty-three tracks, going back to 1981. The band’s name comes from the Night of the Long Knives, June 30th, 1934; the runes stay purposely unreadable.

This was the first piece of classical music I ever really heard. Dvořák wrote the whole serenade in twelve days in May 1875, when he was thirty-three, right after the Austrian State Prize got him out of poverty. The second movement’s a waltz, but he sticks it in C-sharp minor, so it keeps catching on something a little sadder.

I picked it up from some old American movie. It’s from I’m Your Man (1988), written with Sharon Robinson—a litany that starts every line with “everybody knows.” The dice are loaded, the war is over, the good guys lost, the plague’s on its way. Cohen’s late-Cold-War jeremiad, deadpan over cheap synths. #Leonard Cohen