A catalogue number as a doorway: Habibi Funk 035. Behind it, Beirut, a nickname — 'Paris of the East' — and a compilation, Beirut City Pop. The same day, in Sydney, a Bandcamp Daily 'Big Ups' explores the city's club music. Two ways of turning a scene into something to listen to, and two very different relationships with memory.

Beirut's city pop, minus the holiday

The Berlin label Habibi Funk works from archives, and its number 035 is called Beirut City Pop. The phrase 'city pop' comes as a surprise. In his write-up of 19 October 2026, Samuel Tornow notes that the music gathered here is laid-back, far from the sleek, sunlit aesthetic the term usually evokes. A holiday record? No. A city record.

Open booklet page showing a 1960s photograph of Beirut and the compilation's liner notes
Booklet for Beirut City Pop, with a 1960s photograph of Beirut — Booklet: Habibi Funk

The setting described in the article is no postcard. Between 1955 and 1975, Beirut was known as the 'Paris of the East': the city mixed the artistic cultures of the Middle East and Western Europe, not least the French influence that lingered after the French mandate ended in 1946. Civil war broke out in 1975; the social fabric was torn apart, the city split in two — West Beirut, majority Muslim, and East Beirut, largely Christian. It is this backdrop, not a beach setting, that the label places behind the word 'pop'. Hence the question: what do we really hear when a city coming apart becomes something to listen to?

Sydney's club music and Anna Lunoe

The same day, Bandcamp Daily published a 'Big Ups' devoted to Sydney club music. Anna Lunoe's career gives the argument weight. Twenty years ago she was a community radio DJ in her hometown; for the past ten years she has presented HYPERHOUSE on Apple Music, and she supported the Chemical Brothers on their 2024 world tour. For her, talent-spotting is not a line for the occasion.

Mixing desk, CDJ decks and a suspended microphone in the HYPERHOUSE radio studio
The mixing desk in the HYPERHOUSE studio, Anna Lunoe's show — Photo: Apple Music

She puts it plainly: "Highlighting and spotlighting the most brilliant creators that I can see and hear has always been a part of the DNA of my career" (Bandcamp Daily, 19 October 2026). Putting forward the people she hears, before others do. Where Habibi Funk traces the thread of an era, the 'Big Ups' traces one into the present. Two gestures for one idea — a scene, not a genre. The archive gathers and classifies; the 'Big Ups' sorts and passes the mic.

Three listens to get your bearings on the two approaches. Take one track from the compilation, read nothing, and note the texture: the bass, the guitar, the reverb. Play the same track again with the Bandcamp Daily notes in front of you. Then open the 'Big Ups' on Sydney club music: what the archive gathers, the selection sifts.

Listening

For Beirut, the compilation is number 035 on Habibi Funk. Prices vary with the edition, the German import and the condition of the copy: reckon on around £22–£30 for an independent-label vinyl, £10–£16 for a CD. These are guides, not firm prices.

For Sydney, the 'Big Ups' on local club music works as a list of tracks to open one by one; each release is discovered separately. One question remains, the same on both sides: what is really new here, and for whom? In Beirut, the newness is in the exhumation; in Sydney, in the sorting. There are worse programmes than listening to both back to back.

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