{"id":42554,"date":"2017-10-26T11:29:55","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T09:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/tootard-a-band-that-is-literally-without-a-country\/"},"modified":"2017-10-26T11:29:55","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T09:29:55","slug":"tootard-a-band-that-is-literally-without-a-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/tootard-a-band-that-is-literally-without-a-country\/","title":{"rendered":"TootArd, a band that is literally without a country"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><b>TootArd are a young, trailblazing ensemble from the occupied Golan Heights\u00a0<\/b><b>who deftly\u00a0<\/b><b><span lang=\"EN-GB\">fuse Levant-tinted desert blues, melodic psych-rock, morphed reggae and classical Arabic modalities. Their second album\u00a0<i>Laissez<\/i>\u00a0Passer,<i>\u00a0<\/i>is their debut international release and one of the first such releases from their homeland.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n<div id=\"attachment_9796\" style=\"width: 4949px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9796\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9796\" src=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/TootArd-1-photo-by-Mercedes-Ortego-Gonzlez-ConvertImage.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"4939\" height=\"2193\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9796\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cr\u00e9dit photo : Mercedes Ortego Gonzalez<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\">TootArd (Arabic for Strawberries) come from the majestic mountain side village of Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights, making them a band, that is literally without a country.\u00a0Their second album, Laissez Passer (Let Him Pass) is embracing music as their remedy for the ironic reality from which they come, a sound of a band that\u2019s found its voice, restless,\u00a0<span lang=\"EN-GB\">eclectic and infectious.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\"><span class=\"tx\">A<\/span><span class=\"tx f84\">\u00a0Laissez Passer<\/span><span class=\"tx\">. Let him pass. That\u2019s the document the stateless carry. It\u2019s all that those from the\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">occupied Golan Heights possess. Since 1967 the area has been part of Israel, but the inhabitants aren\u2019t\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">Israelis. They don\u2019t have any citizenship. They don\u2019t have passports. Just a\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx f84\">Laissez Passer<\/span><span class=\"tx\">. And for the\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">members of\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx f80\">TootArd<\/span><span class=\"tx\">\u00a0who all grew up in the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan, it\u2019s a very apt\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">name for their new album who will be released on Glitterbeat Records on November 10.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\">\n<div class=\"tb f86\">\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L-ZXT5cHcxo\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\"><span class=\"tx\">Beginning in 2010,\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx f80\">TootArd<\/span><span class=\"tx\">\u00a0played all over the Golan Heights, then travelled further, to Jerusalem,<\/span><span class=\"tx\">Palestine and beyond.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\"><span class=\"tx\">\u201cWe gigged a lot. But by 2014 we felt it was becoming a loop, and we all wanted to change things in\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">our lives. We just needed to stop. I moved to Europe, first to Berlin, then to Bern. Others went\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">elsewhere. But when we\u2019d all go home, we\u2019d get together and perform a concert in our village&#8221;\u00a0explains singer and guitarist Hasan Nakhleh.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\"><span class=\"tx\">Two years passed, and the band members missed the spark of working with each other. The time was\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">right to pick up the reins.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\"><span class=\"tx\">\u201cMy brother Rami, who plays drums in the band, and I had been preparing things. We had new\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">material that we thought was different, that said something unique. Everyone came together and we\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">recorded the album in four months. We all have more life experience now. The music is fresher. We\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">feel we\u2019ve moved ahead.\u201d<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"tx\">The result is an Arabic blues, the quiet, sad music of people who have a home but no nationality.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\"><span class=\"tx f80\">TootArd<\/span><span class=\"tx\">\u00a0are not \u2018undefined\u2019; they\u2019ve fashioned their own identity in their music, creating a bond of\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">the stateless that reaches from the Levant to the Tuareg \u2013 another people without a real home &#8211; \u00a0and\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"tx\">reaches out far beyond. Let them pass<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tb f86\">\n<div id=\"attachment_9799\" style=\"width: 5432px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9799\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9799\" src=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/TootArd-2-photo-by-Mercedes-Ortego-Gonzlez-ConvertImage.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"5422\" height=\"2481\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9799\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cr\u00e9dit : Mercedes Ortego Gonzalez<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The band is already a sensation in parts of the Middle East and are playing cool festivals in the UK (End of the Road) and Germany (Haldern Pop)\u00a0last\u00a0summer. They will be back in early 2018 for a longer European tour.<\/p>\n<p>You can pre-order now the album on all platforms :\u00a0https:\/\/IDOL.lnk.to\/LaissezPasser<\/p>\n<p>Lyrics translations:\u00a0<u>Laissez Passer<\/u><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>I do not exist on the ID card<\/p>\n<p>a string and a piece of wood are my gunpowder<\/p>\n<p>without a nationality, without borders<\/p>\n<p>and if you ask me I would say,<\/p>\n<p>I play\u00a0 the \u00b4Oud.<\/p>\n<p>Laissez Passer; your name\u2026your image isn\u2019t familiar<\/p>\n<p>Laissez Passer; your origin\u2026your roots aren\u2019t known<\/p>\n<p>Laissez Passer; your country\u2026your homeland isn\u2019t known<\/p>\n<p>With music I become a flying bird<\/p>\n<p>I change my feathers, I change my strings<\/p>\n<p>between my letters\u2026words of fire<\/p>\n<p>Arabic, African, \u00b4Oud, and Guitar<\/p>\n<p>Laissez Passer; your name\u2026your image isn\u2019t familiar<\/p>\n<p>Laissez Passer; your origin\u2026your roots aren\u2019t known<\/p>\n<p>Laissez Passer; your country\u2026your homeland isn\u2019t known<\/p>\n<p>Laissez Passer<\/p>\n<p>Laissez Passer<\/p>\n<p>Laissez Passer<\/p>\n<p>Laissez Passer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TootArd are a young, trailblazing ensemble from the occupied Golan Heights\u00a0who deftly\u00a0fuse Levant-tinted desert blues, melodic psych-rock, morphed reggae and classical Arabic modalities. Their second album\u00a0Laissez\u00a0Passer,\u00a0is their debut international release and one of the first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":9799,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3944],"tags":[5325,5927],"location":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42554"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=42554"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=42554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}