Moin, Sophia Al-Maria Lift You (2024)
Today’s song—“Lift You” by Moin—features a poignant spoken-word piece titled “To Read to Be in a Time of War out Loud”, written by Sophia Al-Maria. It was inspired by her live reading of Etel Adnan’s “To Be in a Time of War” during a performance by Tosh Basco in New York in May 2023.
Two sentences into today’s newsletter, and we’ve already mentioned quite a few names—many, if not all of which may be unfamiliar. Yet each is highly relevant in our eyes. So, in this edition of our newsletter, we thought we’d simply introduce them one by one, moving from the end of the list to the beginning. If anyone catches your attention, we encourage you to dig deeper into their work. We’re adding links (and providing further connections in the section below), so you can dive in straight away.
Tosh Basco (b. 1988) is an American artist whose practice spans performance, photography and drawing. Basco is best known for her former persona, boychild. A nonbinary and transgender artist, Basco explores fluid identities through her work. A longtime collaborator of award-winning filmmaker and artist Wu Tsang, she co-founded the collective Moved by the Motion and was part of Schauspielhaus Zurich’s ensemble.
Etel Adnan (1925–2021) was a Lebanese-American poet, essayist and painter. Born in Beirut, she studied philosophy in Paris and the U.S. before teaching in California. Though acclaimed as a writer—in 1977 she received the Amitié Franco-Arabe Prize for her novel Sitt Marie Rose—Adnan only gained global recognition in her eighties for her vivid abstract paintings. With a Syrian Muslim father and a Greek Christian mother, she grew up between cultures and languages, speaking Arabic, Greek and French, and later writing primarily in French and English.
Sophia Al-Maria (b. 1983) is a Qatari-American artist, writer and filmmaker. Raised between Qatar and the U.S., she coined the term “Gulf Futurism” to describe the region’s rapid development and cultural shifts. Her 2012 memoir The Girl Who Fell to Earth explores her bicultural identity. Her visual work—shown at Tate Britain, the Whitney and the Venice Biennale—fuses sci-fi, myth and critique. She also created the 2020 Sky series Little Birds.
Moin is a London-based experimental trio formed by Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead (also known as the duo Raime), joined by percussionist Valentina Magaletti in 2021. Their sound merges intense post‑punk and noise textures with layered electronic vocal samples and guitars as well as Magaletti’s dynamic, asymmetrical drumming. Moin’s 2024 album, You Never End, introduced guest vocalists—including james k, Coby Sey and Al-Maria—marking a shift toward a warmer, more intimate sound that nonetheless remains heavy and, at times, cathartic.
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