DUBAI: “Every time we think, ‘This can’t get worse,’ it gets worse.’ Singer-songwriter Paola Ibrahim — who goes by the artist name Pol — is talking about the situation in her homeland of Lebanon.
Along with “global unrest” and the COVID-19 lockdowns across the globe, the “tragic fall of my nation” inspired her latest EP — released in August to deliberately little fanfare (more on that later) — “Of Pacts and Confinements.”
The three tracks are a showcase for Pol’s crystalline vocals (she’s a classically trained singer and currently works as a vocal coach). Pol collaborated with Beirut-based producer Samer Etienne Chammi (aka ETYEN). It’s the second EP that the pair have worked on together. “I think he’s one of the best here in Lebanon; he’s underrated,” Pol says of ETYEN. “For what I wanted — for my vision — I thought he would be the best fit.”
(Supplied)
On “Of Pacts and Confinements,” that vision, she says, “a bit different to my previous stuff — less electronic, more organic. This is more what I like and more what I listen to. It brought me back to my formative music years, when I used to sing opera. I like the church organ sound, and I wanted more (stuff) like that. Even if it’s not radio-friendly or commercial, that’s how I wanted it. It’s not for everybody, of course, and you probably couldn’t listen to it every day.” She laughs. “You’d get depressed. But at the end of the day, if I’m not going to do it the way that I like it, I’d rather not do it at all.”
It took a while for Pol to do music the way she likes it. The 36-year-old has been performing around Beirut and the wider region for years, but until recently she was only singing covers. It wasn’t until 2017, when she took a voice teacher training course which required her to go to New York that she rediscovered her teenage passion for poetry, which led to her composing her own songs.
“This is the period when everything changed for me. I was going through a break up, so it inspired me to write, (as did) being in New York doing something new,” she says. “I used to write poems when I was 14 or 15 — y’know, teenage stuff — and I found that this was flowing again. I felt it was a new chapter, a new phase.”
It wasn’t an easy phase for her to move into, either. Despite being a veteran stage performer, Pol says she “stressed a lot” about unveiling her own music. “When I perform covers, I don’t really care; I’m very confident. But it’s very different when you’re doing your own music. Even my musicians said to me, ‘What’s wrong? You’ve been performing for more than 10 years.’ But no, it’s different. My first concert was very stressful.”
As you’d expect for a record about the various crises afflicting Lebanon and the isolation of lockdown, “Of Pacts and Confinements” has a certain melancholy resignation to it. But there’s also an air of hopeful optimism in there too.
“I would say it’s like a healing and empowering anthem. If you’re going through things, you’re healing, and at the end of that there’s victory; there’s glory, there’s hope,” she says. “It’s a very personal record. On my other records, I was also telling my story, but differently. This one is more personal, more daring, more revealing. I’ve said things I don’t think I would’ve said two years ago.”
Two years ago, not coincidentally, is when Pol started therapy. “That’s changing me a lot,” she says. “But it’s an ongoing process. The record’s like a healing journey. It’s all related to lockdowns and digging into the past. And at the end, of course, there’s hope. Despite everything that’s happening, there’s always hope. I can’t give up. I have to keep working towards that.”
Her next major step is an artist’s residency in France in spring next year. “This gave me hope, of course, because I’ll be able to work on my music,” Pol says. Like so many in Lebanon, she says she doesn’t want to leave the country, but feels she may have to if she’s going to realize her creative ambitions. “No electricity, no gas… what can you do? I can’t even work.”
Despite Pol’s obvious pride in her latest record, its release — as mentioned — has been markedly low-key. Apart from a gig in Beirut in mid-September (a collaboration with the Beirut Music Initative and the NGO War Child) Pol did little promotion around the EP’s release, even online.
“I feel like I can’t really (push it). Some people don’t even have food. Everybody’s focuses on getting their basic needs, so I’m not really motivated to (promote myself). But I needed to release this record because I needed to move on from it. I don’t know when there would be a ‘right time,’ so I just had to do it,” she says. “This is what keeps me going. If I stop, I’d be giving up.”