Artist DIY: Thoom

Artist DIY is a series of videos made by artists in collaboration with Fact in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last month, Lebanese-born artist Thoom released her debut album, Pork, a nine-track record of abstract electronics and introspective lyrics written across Beirut, Chicago and Berlin.

“I wanted to make songs, not tracks,” says Thoom, whose 2017 debut EP explored club sounds on Club Chai. “We didn’t want all this fluffy production or anything, we didn’t want to use too much sound design. We wanted it pretty raw and organic.”

In this episode of Artist DIY, Thoom and her collaborators talk about the making of Pork and the underground music scene in Beirut, which was devastated by a huge explosion in the city’s port area on August 4, just a few days before the release of the album.

“It’s really important to fund these spaces in Beirut right now because it’s really hard to live there,” she says. “It’s struggles daily.”

Pork is out now. If you want to help people affected by the current situation in Lebanon, Thoom suggests donating to Disaster Relief for Lebanese Transgender Community and Food and medicine for kafala victims in Lebanon.