Rock

Guitar bands from the Arab world, from psychedelia and prog to punk, metal and post-rock.

Rock has a longer history in the region than it is usually given credit for. Beirut and Cairo had working beat and psych bands in the 1960s and 1970s, playing covers and originals for an urban audience, and the records they left behind have been steadily reissued and rediscovered.

There was never much label infrastructure for rock here, so the genre grew up around festivals, university stages and self-run venues instead, and that is still how it works: a band builds its audience by playing, and records on its own terms. It is also why the scenes in Beirut, Cairo, Amman, Casablanca and Tunis know each other well and end up on each other’s bills.

The current wave runs from psych revival and desert-tinged riff bands through post-rock instrumentals to straightforward punk, in Arabic and in English.