Download from Bandcamp

Including 8 page, 12" sized booklet with unseen photos and liner notes by Armani Syed.

Coke green transparent vinyl. Pressing. 300 of these are made, they won't be repressed.

Includes digital pre-order of Habibi Funk 030: Hawalat. You get 2 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released. If Hawalat sounds like a world tour that’s because it essentially is. “As much as Marzipan is a picture of Lebanon from the inside, Hawalat kind of picks up from where Marzipan finished but more looking to the outside, the diaspora, to the notion of exile.” Megarbane says he is interested in the connections between the global and the domestic, the mundane and the cosmic, and wanted to create space for non-linear progression.

Hawalat is based on the idea of hawala, informal money transfers that you can make to certain countries impacted by a lack of currency or unstable political and economic contexts. His use of the term on this album is not a financial one, Megarbane explains, but a nod to notions of creative exchange between “places, persons, generations.” It is the first time Megarbane called on other musicians in this way to inform his sound, including a collaboration with Sven Wunder on the song Helia featuring strings by the Stockholm Studio Orchestra.


The album opens with first single Hanadi, a punchy Somali-inspired track with warm non-lexical vocals and saxophone. It immediately pivots to the Dreams of an Insomniac, which balances soft, effortless vocals and keys with urgent violin intrusions. Al Dollarji feels like Megarbane’s bread and butter, that is Mediterranean sounds with intricate strings, while Al Bahriye takes this staple and introduces hip hop inflections. The result is a rich 17 track album that effortlessly blends genres and styles.

Eclectic sounds from the Arab world. DJ & label, based in Berlin linktr.ee/habibifunk مختارات موسيقية من العالم العربي. دي چاي وليبل في برلين.

1. Facebook