“The lyrics deal with the accumulation of the past,” we wrote of Interbellum‘s Dead Pets, Old Griefs back in 2018. “Items and objects, images and snippets of remembered moments—a mass of discrete things with which we must build the mosaic of our memory.” The record, the second full-length Lebanon-born, Berlin-based singer-songwriter Karl Mattar had released under the moniker, offered a deep engagement with concepts of memory, time and loss. A collection of songs which built upon the mostly guitar-driven sound of debut Now Try Coughing with a variety of synthesizers and samples to fully excavate such themes. “The effect is that of a music box grown sentient,” as we concluded, “breaking from the programmed jingle to communicate more sincerely, with human heart.”
Next month sees Interbellum return with a brand new record, Our House Is Very Beautiful at Night, which continues the exploration of such themes with an ever-evolving style. Where the previous album leant toward pop sensibilities, Our House turns toward what Mattar calls a “more organic and anarchic sound.” One crafted around acoustic guitar but fleshed out with a myriad of supporting elements from densely layered instrumentation to sound samples and field recordings, with drummer Pascal Semerdjian (of Lebanese dream pop outfit Postcards) offering contributions from his hometown of Ain Aar. The fluid, collage-like style which emerges feels at once haunted by the past and permeable to the outside world. One singularly geared towards evoking the complex manifestations of memory and trauma with which the album deals.
For Our House Is Very Beautiful at Night is a record of intergenerational reach. A story of violence and ghosts in the aftermath of a civil war, where the lingering vibrations of the past are not only felt in the present but actively shaping the world as it exists today. “Within this framework, ghosts represent trauma,” Mattar explains. “The intergenerational transmission of the phantom—a loss that is untellable and therefore inaccessible to the gradual assimilative work of mourning.” The collective trauma of a country still submerged beneath its history.
Today we have the pleasure of sharing lead single, ‘Partners’. A single which serves as the ideal introduction to the new Interbellum sound. Because for all its ambition and scope, the record foregoes none of the intimacy which lends such concepts their weight. ‘Partners’ offers a glimpse of human life as lived from within the sweep of history, where people not only continue despite the uncertainty and spectres and troubling signs but look for order within the apparent chaos. Any way to square the political whole with their own small lives. Watch the video by Camille Cabbabé below:
I tried to remind you, you couldn’t recall
Did it happen that way? Did it happen at all?
So I do the remembering
Give names to nameless things
I’ve got archiving fever and I’m feeling for wallsBut the light is still on in the hall
Our House Is Very Beautiful at Night is set for release on April 7th and you can pre-order it now from the Interbellum Bandcamp page.
Photo by Rachel Tabet