SaladeFriday in Athens: Hajj, Moughanni, Kourtesi, lookmaitmoves
The SaladeFriday project was founded in Beirut in 2021 by Lebanese musician Akram Hajj.
It is organized in various European cities, with the aim of bringing together musicians from Lebanon’s experimental and underground scene with artists from other countries and other artistic backgrounds.
Following the explosion at the port of Beirut and Lebanon’s economic crisis, many musicians were forced to leave the country, seeking new places where they could live, create, and prosper.
In their original form, these gatherings combined improvisational music with a private dinner—each participant brought a fruit or vegetable of their choice, and the host mixed them together to make an improvised salad. The title of the project derives from this practice.
After small events in Cairo, Alexandria, Italy, and Switzerland, SaladeFriday found an almost permanent home in Paris, between the Middle Eastern diaspora and the local scene.
The second SaladeFriday hosted by KET features Akram Hajj (percussion, electronics), Joy Moughanni (electronics), Vanessa Kourtesi (vocals), and lookmaitmoves (live visuals).
🔷 Lebanese musician and drummer Akram Hajj became widely known as a member of the post-rock band Kinematik. His solo work combines acoustic percussion, pedals, and a mixer without inputs, creating an electroacoustic, industrial, and atmospheric sound known as Daf-Noise. He lives in Paris.
🔷 Joy Moughanni is a Beirut-based producer, engineer, and songwriter, as well as a partner at Tunefork Studios. As a sought-after production collaborator in Beirut’s alternative scene, producing several albums with regional and international artists. Joy’s work explores sound in relational contexts and archives, drawing from his architectural studies and spatial sonic installations. Recently, he has been sonically exploring themes of personal and political manipulation through his debut solo album “A Separation From Habit” Voted #48 on The Quietus 2025 Album of the year.
🔷 Musician, composer-songwriter, and singer Vanessa Kourtesi draws inspiration from the traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean, improvisation, ambient music, and jazz. In 2022, she released an EP, and in 2023, an album with the band Merem. Her first solo album is set to be released in 2026. She is a graduate of Codarts (Rotterdam) and the Voice Study Center – University of Wales.
🔷 Cynthia-ël Hasbani (aka lookmaitmoves) is a Beirut-born Berlin-based media artist. From visual design to video art, interactive installation and live performance, her work revolves around dreams, memories, motion and psychosomatic aesthetics inspired by a longing for the 90’s, when digital and analog were bordering on simultaneity.