Singer Dida Guigan, who lives in Beirut, and electronic musician Marcel Saegesser, from Bern, meet in 2010 and immediately established the LEL SAMAR PROJECT. In the same year their first concert programme «Live in Beirut» was generated. While Dida composes tunes and writes lyrics in Beirut, Marcel programs electronic grooves in Bern. Large numbers of mp3 files are being sent in both directions, also among them recordings of the Beirut city life, which Marcel weaves into sound textures. In 2011 the voyage continues while the geographic division ends: Dida and Marcel settle in a sound studio in Beirut and their process-oriented work carries them to their debut album «D’un coup d’aile» (released in very small numbers with their own distribution), which contains new interpretations of traditional Arabic music along with four original compositions.
Now, LEL SAMAR PROJECT launches its third phase with «MORCEAU DE RIEN»: A one-hour, continuous concert programme comes into being. Marcel and Dida are driven by their joint desire for research and their will to further develop the specific sound that they have found. Their characteristic is a simultaneity of marvelous slack and eternal propulsion, strangely poetic in nature.
Finely arranged sound material and the precise placement of Dida’s voice whose manner neither gives way to the traditions of classical or jazz singing nor adopts Arabic singing without reflecting it.
The duo’s hallmark is that they push the horizon further back, little by little. Marcel expands the phonetic range using a custom-made string instrument – a kind of re-tuned Koto – which he uses as an organic sound generator in combination with his live electronic refinements. The programme «MORCEAU DE RIEN» is to include the Beirut-based video and film artist Nadim Samoa, who is going to add a visual layer to the music: A one-hour video projection, based on and reflecting their music, which will be part of their tour. The work on «MORCEAU DE RIEN» will lead Dida and Marcel to Cairo, where they have been invited as artists-in-residence by ProHelvetia. Beginning in autumn of 2012, a concert tour through Europe and the Middle East will follow.
The two musician’s aim with the LEL SAMAR PROJECT is to enhance the Western as well as the Arabic music world. Their music, constantly searching for manifold layers of beauty, manages to put the audience in an astonished and sensual state. Their music appeals to a wide audience, ready to open itself to new influences.
LEL SAMAR PROJECT is supported by ProHelvetia, Stadt Bern, Burgergemeinde Bern, SWISSLOS/ Kanton Bern, Schweizerische Botschaft Beirut.