28 October 2006
BEIRUT: Their points of reference are bands like Sonic Youth, Sigur Ros, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bloc Party and the Liars. Their list of influences includes no wave, post rock, punk, electroclash, pop trash and bombs in the sky. Their sound is an aggressive blend of experimental noise and catchy pop, as innovative and of the moment now as Blondie must have sounded to virgin ears in the New York music scene of the late 1970s.
They have recorded about seven songs so far and performed less than 10 live shows in the past year and a half. They are Lumi - otherwise known as Marc Codsi and Mayaline Hage - one in a clutch of young Lebanese rock bands who are currently animating the local, underground music scene with the likes of Scrambled Eggs and the New Government.
Lumi began in January 2005. Codsi, the lead guitarist for Scrambled Eggs, wanted to explore something sonically new with a side project. Hage had joined Codsi's primary band on stage once before, when Scrambled Eggs' lead singer, Charbel Haber, was out of town.
"I basically just screamed into the microphone," says Hage, who is in her early 20s and has the gift of understated, wry humor.
Both interested in the free improvised music scene that has been percolating in Beirut since 2000, Codsi and Hage decided to form a band to integrate that approach to experimentation with the slightly more structured spirit of postmodern rock n' roll. In other words, they compose. The name Lumi, explains Codsi, is meant to evoke a sense of lightness and brightness, which effectively offsets the gloom and doom that creeps into some of their songs.
"We are not a band in the normal sense, like a rock band," says Codsi, who is in his late 20s and arranges most of Lumi's music on his laptop, feeding in riffs and distortion from his electric guitar and messing around with other beats and sounds. Hage takes care of the lyrics - most of them improvised on first listen and set down on paper afterward.
As a singer and songwriter, Hage eschews nearly all existing archetypes for what a female vocalist should look like or sound like. Her antecedents, though she doesn't make any direct reference to them, are musicians like PJ Harvey, Kim Deal of the Pixies, the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Karen O and, of course, Blondie's Debbie Harry. She's not afraid to scream, nor is she afraid to do so in a well-tailored frock.
Lumi's approach to the music business is similarly contemporary. Codsi and Hage have been in discussions with local labels before, but are content to continue composing their songs and posting them on their My Space site until the right record deal comes along.
"We're always working on new songs," says Codsi. "It's a never-ending process."
But they also want reach well beyond Beirut.
"Our ambition is the only thing that keeps us going," says Hage, nodding vigorously in agreement with Codsi as he notes that as exciting as the underground music scene in Beirut may be these days, it is still too small, too insular, too insignificant for any one band to make much of an impact.
"Plus," Codsi adds with a grimace, "to be in the music scene here you still have to have a full-time job."
For more information about Lumi, please check out their music at www.myspace.com/lumisounds
