Nicole Sabouné captures the contradictions of identity and heritage on ANA أنا

That's the question sitting at the heart of Nicole Sabouné’s fifth album ANA أنا, a record that begins with a desire to connect with her Lebanese roots and ends in the acceptance that who we are is rarely as straightforward as we'd like to believe. “Where do I come from?” is the challenge of the title track that opens the LP, and one that she spends the next ten songs trying to answer. Having grown up in Sweden with little connection to her father’s Lebanese heritage, her first journey to Lebanon in 2024 prompted a journey of self-discovery that had until then proved elusive. "Ana (أنا)", the Arabic word for 'I', introduces this quest through atmospheric oud and steady guitar chimes, giving the arrangement a feel of a vintage soundtrack, before the song brews into something more charged, hinting at the trials to come. “Lubnan (لبنان)” continues this cinematic approach, foregrounding the need for a place to feel and to be. It’s numinous, the way the record approaches home, as though recognition were some kind of ancestral instinct waiting to be disinterred. But of course this is almost never the case and “Leave It All Behind (أترك كل شيء خلفك)” recognises this melancholic turn, mark...