Interview with Checkpoint 303: Electronic / Experimental music from Palestine, Tunisia and France

I have briefly written about Checkpoint 303 here when I first found out about their astounding music. It’s been my favorite band ever since. I feel no need to introduce them further, as it’s already done in detail below, so I’ll just ask you to enjoy the interview and the music sample and pictures that go along with it!

Q. Describe the starting point in forming Checkpoint 303. What is the concept behind the name? What is the story behind its creation?

Checkpoint 303 is a collective of artists from Palestine, Tunisia and France that creates electronic experimental music that carries a strong message for peace and justice. Our musical but also visual compositions reflect (-and are a reflection upon-) both the reality of life in the Middle East and the aspirations and hope of the civilian populations throughout the region for a better future. In particular, Checkpoint 303 attempts to speak about Palestine in a radically novel way. The name of the project is inspired by the name of a real military checkpoint in the West Bank, called Checkpoint 300, which separates Bethlehem from East Jerusalem. In a way, Checkpoint 303 is a virtual artistic checkpoint. The project was launched at the end of 2004 by Palestinian SC Yosh and Tunisian SC MoCha. The principle was quite simple, the Sound Catcher (SC) Yosh records sounds from the streets and homes of various West Bank cities and then the Sound Cutter (SC) MoCha slices the sounds into short audio samples and uses mixes them with electronic beats and Oud melodies to recreate the soundtrack of life in Palestine. The interaction between the field recording and the electronic audio compositions aspects are strengthened by input from various other artists that have joined the collective. These include Sheikh Julio (visuals and audio field recordings), Miss K SuShi (keyboards) and Mehdi Douss (electric guitar). SC Yosh and SC MoCha that started off this project back in 2004 are long-time friends that met towards the end of the 90s in Tunis.

Q. Many of your songs have socio-political messages concerning current events in Palestine and Lebanon. What inspired you to focus on that?

Creating Checkpoint 303 was a way for the members of the group to combine a common interest for electronic, electro-acoustic and alternative music with a strong feeling that the ongoing injustice in Palestine also needs to be addressed through music and brought to the attention of the world through art. It is not so much the fact that the founding members are of arabic origin that inspired the defines the issues we talk about in our music. It is rather a strong conviction that injustice anywhere in the world should be reported, fought and exposed to the world. The Palestinian cause is a question of fundamental human rights and as such it is a universal issue and every human being should be concerned, just like every human being should be concerned with what happened in South Africa for example. It is important to be aware that the media (both western and in often also in our own countries) is often biased in its depiction of events related to Palestine and the middle east in general. We try to counter this bias by attempting to reconstruct the sound of daily life. This includes obviously the hardship of life under occupation but also the search for normality and hope. The various sounds heard in our music are recorded from the streets and seek to portray both negative and positive aspects of daily life. By speaking about the dreams and reality of young people in Palestine or elsewhere in the region we hope that young people across the globe will find a direct way of connecting and getting closer to them. But also recording the sound of checkpoint controls and turning it into music is a way to draw the world’s attention to the tough reality Palestinians are faced with and maybe it is also a way of confronting and artistically defying the concept of checkpoint.

Checkpoint 303 live set in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, April 2008.

Q. Where do you get your lyrics from, is it existing material that you remix or do you write and create it yourselves?

Most of the sounds you hear in the music by Checkpoint 303 comes from our own recordings. We use recording gear (mini-disc recorders or camcorders) to record various random sounds in Palestine. We then scan throigh hours of recordings and find inspiring sounds that will be the starting point for a new track. This was the case for example for songs such as « Hawiya Dhay3a » (Lost identity) or «Streets O Ramallah » or « Teoda » (ID). We also use excerpts from TV and radio news stations like in our track « Needle Stuck on Lebanon » which was composed and mixed following the war on Lebanon in summer 2006. A war that has turned into a recurring event, an event that repeats like the sound of a needle stuck on a scratched old disc…In our song « Rissala min Qalandia » you also hear the voice of the unique Syrian poet Nizar Qbbani. Our track Zaytoun starts with the voice of the outstanding Sheikh Imam Issa. We also coposed a song that is a tribute to Edward Said entitled « Said Guevara » and in our shows we also have live performances that are based on lyrics from the late Mahmoud Darwish. In fact, in a recent show we did in Tokyo, we collaborated with a japanese experimental band (Akifukuin) and during an improvisation on stage a member of the japanese band read excerpts from Darwish’s poetry in Japanse. So, we do not write lyrics. The music of Checkpoint 303 is based on sounds we record and on recycled audio material. By the way this is also true for our video work. Our shows invlove most of the time a video projection based on live effects (visual jockey) and the material we use is based on our own footage.

Q. What are your long-term music career goals?

We do not really have pre-defined career goals for this project, especially no commercial goals. We will continue to do what we do as long as we feel it makes sense. Some members of the collective are part-time musicians, others are full time musicians that work on other projects too. Checkpoint 303 is first of all an electronic act of resistance. Resistance to biased media, to injustice, to intolerance and to ignorance.

Q. Do you have a target audience with your music? Who do you want your music to reach to, and what impact do you want it to have?

As mentioned previously our compositions are authentic because they reflect, in our opinion, various aspects of life in Palestine. We do not create the music with an audience in mind. It is simply what it is meant to be. On the other hand, clearly because of the aesthetics and musical genre

We hope that our music reaches a maximum number of people around the world and that by doing so it might trigger the curiosity of people from all over to find out more about the reality of the situation in Palestine in particular, but also in the middle east and in the arab world in general. People often have prejudices or are ill-informed by the media in their countries. Music and art in general might turn out to be an efficient way to help change this. Of course we know that our music is not going to solve the existing problems or change the situation, but the first step is to get people interested and start raising international awareness…The mere fact that young people in Sweden, Belgium, Australia, Canada, Japan, UK, France etc…discover through our concerts the existence of an arabic alternative electronic music scene might change the view that some might have of the arab world. Furthermore, people that like our music are often interested in discovering other bands from or related to the arab world. All this helps create a different image of the arab world, maybe one that has more variety and that is less uniform.

Mehdi Douss and SC MoCha on stage in Malmö, Sweden. (May, 07)

Q. In your opinion, what role does music play in raising awareness about certain issues? Is it an influential and powerful method of communication?

Music definitely plays a powerful role in raising awareness. One advantage that electronic and alternative music have compared to more classical or traditional music is that they have a universal dimension that makes them accessible to people from all over. The fact that we do not have a singer, that our music is based on recorded sounds and recycled material gives our music an abstract dimension but at the same time it makes it less restrictive. Furthermore, the sounds heard on our tracks are also explained on our website where people can listen to the songs, download them and find our more information about the circumstances in which each song was composed. To find out more people can either check out our website or our MySpace page.

Q. How do you describe your music to people?

(smile) Yes, we know, it is hard to describe ! Our music is a mixture of several styles : electronic music, breakbeats, drum’n’bass, experimental sound processing, electro-acoustic music, etc. Some have described our music as middle-eastern activist electronica, others as palestinian underground music or simply experimental music…actually, the fact that we are hard to calssify does not bother us, we quite like that. It is the music industry that needs to classify bands to better put them in shelves and sell. We are outside these circuits and do not need a classification. One thing we’d like to point out is that we are, for some reason, sometime mistakenly described as being a hip-hop band. This is definitely not the case. We enjoy hip-hop and respect many outstanding hip-hop acts from the middle east, but the music we do is quite far from hip-hop.

Q. What live performance experience have you had?

Fortunately, we have received many invitations to perform live over the last two years. Some of our live shows included electronic performances as supporting act for UK trip-hop band Massive Attack in a series of benefit shows in the UK in February 2007 (Birmingham and London’s Brixton Academy) and again supporting Massive attack in France (July 2008, Nuits de Fourvière festival, Lyon). Checkpoint 303 has also performed numerous shows in France, Sweden, Belgium, Canada, The Netherlands, Palestine, Tunisia, USA (Los Angeles), Australia (Sydney & Melbourne) and Japan (Tokyo). Future concerts will include concerts in Belgium, France and in the US (Washington DC).

CP-303 opening for Massive Attack (24.07.2008, Lyon, FR)

Q. Do you sell CDs, or is all your music found on the internet? Do you ever create profit from your music and, if not, do you intend on that in the future? (My intention with this question is to see whether you are doing this primarily as a hobby, or professionally as a full time job)

For the moment our music can only be found on the internet. People can access it and download it directly from our website. A CD will be available soon but the music will continue to be available on line. Our aim is definitely not commercial. We have been contacted by a number of independent labels and production companies, but we are also considering auto-production. Those members of the band who happen to be full time musicians make a living off of other musical projects, not off of this one.

Q. What advice would you give to aspiring underground music creators in the Middle East?

Not sure we’re in a position to advise anyone… in music and in art in general one should find out his path by himself through trial and error, constant interrogations and self criticism. But of course the main thing is to be genuine and honest in the creative process and not think about commercial success. Authenticity and originality is what makes a work timeless. Musicians that try to be ‘in’ or ‘hip’ by attempting to produce music they think people want to listen to, either fail because the music is mere copy of existing material or go through a short success that dies out as soon as the trend is over. In other words, our only suggestion is that a work of art should be created in total independence from the mainstream. To take a simple example, we’re witnessing a flourishing hip-hop scene all over the arab world from Marocco to Egypt, from Palestine to Syria as well as in the gulf countries. Some of these bands are outstanding because they are innovative. Some have taken on the challenge of attempting to mix hip-hop beats with elements of arabic music, the result is fascinating and brings something new to hip-hop. However many arabic hip-hop groups still produce bad copies of western hip-hop. Hip-hop culture is a powerful artistic expression and can easily be combined with music from countries from all over the world. This is also the case for other music genres such as Jazz, Reggae Electronic Music, etc. Several arabic artists have attempted such fusion in various genres, with excellent results, these include : Dhaffer Youssef, Rabi3 Abu Khalil, Anouar Brahem, Neshez, Ramallah Underground, DJ Lethal Skillz, Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, Khaled Benyahia, Khalas, Soap Kills, Barry, Mehdi Haddab, and the list is much longer…

UPCOMING EVENTS:

For more music samples and pictures please visit their extensive MySpace page, where you will also find other great bands of similar taste.

We’d like to thank Checkpoint 303 for agreeing to be interviewed for Mideast Youth and wish them the best of luck with their exceptional and important music!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Bookmark this article

•     
•     
•     
•     
•     
•     
•     
•     
•     
•     
•     
•     
•     
•     

E-mail this article to a friend

* Required Field

Your Name: *

Your E-Mail: *

Your Remark:

Friend's Name: *

Separate multiple entries with a comma. Maximum 5 entries.

Friend's E-Mail: *

Separate multiple entries with a comma. Maximum 5 entries.

Image Verification: *

 Loading ...

Close