LAÏ and Liliane Chlela Bring Time to a Crawl on ‘Msh Akeed’

Following the jagged energy of their debut collaboration ‘Msh S7ab’, Lebanese duo LAÏ and Liliane Chlela have returned with a meditative pivot in their latest release, ‘Msh Akeed’.

While their previous work thrived on sonic friction and deconstruction, this concluding chapter of their collaborative project feels suspended in time, trading erratic pulses for a hazy trip-hop groove that navigates the messy reality of attachment-avoidance loops.

Chlela’s production abandons sharp transitions in favor of an immersive layering of strings and electronic washes. Here, LAÏ’s voice is treated as a malleable texture that drifts in and out of the arrangement, eventually dissolving into a heavy, decelerated outro that mirrors a total surrender to instability. Chlela describes the intent behind this sonic atmosphere. “I wanted to create a subtle backdrop and motor for the mellow and abstract vocals-based cinematics. Using the steady beat, I was able to weave textures together that are continuously reshaping into vivid, fleeting scenes.”

This sense of paralysis is further explored in the accompanying music video, directed by LAÏ with cinematography by Michel Nakhle. The visuals utilize static frames and syrupy slow motion that take us into chronostatis, serving as a visual translation of the track’s core psyche, as LAÏ explains:

"Time feels distorted and slow, nostalgia blurs with overlays of the present, and certainty becomes unreachable.”

Watch the music video for 'Msh Akeed' here: