Featured in Pitchfork’s 30 Best Jazz and Experimental Albums of 2023, Yara Asmar’s second album Synth Waltzes and Accordion Laments has been described as “a cushion against reality” by The Quietus magazine, in which Daryl Worthington also wrote “Asmar creates music that unfurls in evanescent bliss, an invitation to a safe space both isolated and welcoming.”
“Her music is strange, adventurous elongated and highly idiosyncratic, its music that beckons you from afar and if you’re willing to get close enough will fill your soul.”
“In a diaphanous gauze of dream-realism, the Beirut multi-instrumentalist, composer, video artist and puppeteer Yara Asmar conveys a sense of dislocation, loss and remembrance.”
“Melancholic drifts sound through the overcast skies of synth waltzes and accordion laments, infusing ageless melodies with a sense of falling backward through time. History is stitched through gilded aural silhouettes and elegiac drones. Asmar’s music is visceral. While electronics beckon beyond the sunrise stretched through a metallic shimmer, synth waltzes and accordion laments sticks with us while we remain lost in the hazy doldrums, always crawling forward tethered to our past lives. Highest recommendation.”
“Lebanese puppeteer and musician Yara Asmar impresses with this fanciful suite of accordion and synth vignettes. We were enchanted by Asmar's last collection of home recordings, and 'synth waltzes…' develops her narrative further, offsetting traditional sounds with glassy, hypnotic ambience. Just like its predecessor, 'synth waltzes…' buzzes with a fantastical quality that speaks to Asmar's work as a puppeteer. She uses the waltz form to imply a wide-eyed playfulness that emerged in Germany before spreading into the wider world. 'to die in the country' is shadowy and puzzling, slowed to a crawl and made from synth chimes that can't help but remind us of mystifying short films and animations.”
“An electro-acoustic journey of deep emotion and rippling beauty.”
“ …these tracks are a cushion against reality. Asmar creates music that unfurls in evanescent bliss, an invitation to a safe space both isolated and welcoming.”
“Fragile, deep, utterly enthralling home recordings from Beirut; lost in memories, worry, grief, rapture, love. Warmly recommended.”