THE STORIES THAT TIE US TO TREES
The Stories that Tie Us to Trees is Nadine Altounji’s second release. Composed of two volumes, the album melds Nadine’s passion for the varied rhythms and forms of Middle Eastern music with the musical traditions of South America that fuse African, Latin and varied indigenous influences. Inspired by many months spent studying local music in Ecuador and Peru, and exchanging cultural knowledge with the people there, the first volume of The Stories that Tie Us to Trees explores these physical and musical landscapes and narratives.
The first volume of five songs is the culmination of collaborations with people that Nadine met during her travels, including local musicians and featuring songs in both Spanish and Arabic. While the album’s first volume embraces the world and celebrates collaboration, on the album’s second volume Nadine looks inward to explore more personal territory. These five intimate songs, written, performed and sung by Nadine, feature Joseph Khoury on percussion, and include lyrics in French.
The Stories that Tie Us to Trees Vol.1 was co-produced and co-arranged by Nadine and Mark Alan Haynes, who has worked with such artists as Janet Jackson, Gladys Knight and The Sounds of Blackness, to name but a few.
The Stories that Tie Us to Trees Vol.1, accompanied by its five videos was launched on June 3rd 2022. Enracinées dans l’Histoire/The Stories that Tie Us to Trees Vol.2 will be released on November 8th at la Sotterenea.
Marcha de Flores is a passionate tribute to all the women of South America and around the world who stand up to demand justice, freedom from violence and equal rights for women. The song and accompanying video are being released on International Women’s Day to bring attention to the plight of women in Peru and with the intention of raising funds for Mantay, a non-profit in Cusco, Peru that supports young mothers. Recited in Spanish by Montreal-based musician Nadine Altounji, the song is the fruit of a collaboration between Nadine Altounji and Peruvian poet and dancer Marcia Castro Gamarra, who Nadine met in South America while researching the musical traditions of Ecuador and Peru for her upcoming album The Stories that Tie Us to Trees.
BINT EL BALAD
Bint El Balad is a celebration of women of South West Asian and North-African descent born in the diaspora. It celebrates women who dance between worlds and are transformed. The song brings together Nadine Altounji, Nadia Bashalani and Dana El Masri, three women whose roots run deep into the rich soil of their parents’ Syria, Lebanon and Egypt homelands.
ESCARBA EN MI ALMA
Escarba en mi alma emerged from a songwriting collaboration that reaches across borders. Inspired by the Peruvian guitar and dance style, the Tondero, this song features Nadine Altounji on guitar and vocals. The music was written in collaboration with Pedro Diaz, a Montreal-based, Peruvian singer-songwriter. Peruvian poet and dancer Marcia Castro Gamarra, who Nadine met and bonded with while doing research for the project in Cusco, Peru, wrote the words. The Spanish lyrics poetically explore the deep and intimate longing to reclaim cultural knowledge, kinship and the roots that had been unearthed and hidden by the ravages of conquest, colonialism and time.
3ALA BALI
3ala bali (On My Mind) is a song about memories; nostalgia for homelands that have been transformed and, at times, rendered unrecognizable by the ravages of war. These traumatic images of destruction are often the only ones shown in the media. This song manifests a deep longing for that remembered place and time from which culture springs; it shows how memories can be carried in bodies and culture spread throughout the diaspora.
NO LO OLVIDEN
No lo olviden, the fifth and final song/video in Volume 1, is a song about children and the horrors of war. It’s a haunting cry from the diaspora calling out for justice and healing for families and cultures that have been torn asunder by war. Featuring Nadine Altounji singing in Spanish and performing spoken word in Arabic, No lo olviden is a song that flows between continents, languages and musical traditions, bringing together common threads of despair and resilience to suture the wounds of colonization and oppression.
THE JOURNEY
In 2018, Nadine Altounji undertook a four month journey in Ecuador and Peru to research regional musical traditions (the journey was made possible by a research grant from the Canada Council for the Arts). Upon arriving in Ecuador, Nadine set out to scale Pichincha, an active volcano, but one wrong step on the volcano’s slope halted her ascent. Her foot was broken. Despite this seemingly derailing turn of fate, she was still lucky — a group of off-duty firefighters and rescue workers found her and, twisting rope into a sling, the six men carried her for five hours down the slope to safety.