THROUGH THE ASHES OF EMPIRES

When Fadi Massamiri owned a studio, he spent much of his day working on music. Sometimes it was for his own band, post-black metal duo Eulen, for whom he sang and played drums, guitars and keyboards. Sometimes it was for other bands, who wanted to avail themselves of the facilities he had built from scratch and the production skills he’d taught himself.

Sessions were regularly interrupted by sudden eruptions of noise, sometimes distant, sometimes nearby. There was little anyone could do about it: the noises were the sound of bombs exploding. Fadi’s studio was in the Syrian capital of Damascus, a city caught up in the midst of a terrible civil war.

“That area was not safe,” says Fadi today. “We used to go and have a smoke outside. Sometimes bullets would pass right before us. You could hear the bombings all around the studio. You get scared, but you get used to it after a while. One guy wanted to record the bombing, but