While wandering Parisian streets, Charbel Haber felt May a Soft Sun Bless Your Sky While You Wait for the Inevitable illuminate the idyllic scenes around him. The radiant melodies he had written seeped into the landscape and made its colors a little more vivid. It was 2025 and the Lebanese musician, performer, visual artist and composer had just moved to the city from Beirut; he had always loved Paris and he felt it was time to put some distance between himself and war around him. He couldn’t forgo the horrors of the world, but his music could help him find some softness. May a Soft Sun Bless Your Sky While You Wait for the Inevitable was born out of that moment, from both Haber’s love of Paris and his desire to find gentleness despite the horrors of the world. Determination and resilience are the force behind these tender melodies, driving each billowing hum. Underneath the minimalist swaths of guitar lies a quote from Riilke: “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” It was a new endeavor to make a record so grounded in Paris. Much of Haber’s solo work is rooted in life in Beirut, and he is a central figure in Lebanon’s experimental and post-punk scenes. His work can be heard in groups like Scrambled Eggs and The Bunny Tylers and in films and visual artworks; as a soloist, he explores ambient, distorted guitar as a vehicle for storytelling, crafting music that sits somewhere between Glenn Branca and Alice Coltrane, blending the grit of Branca’s no wave with Coltrane’s spiritual approach. May a Soft Sun is an album he’s wanted to make for many years, one that’s driven by fluid melodies, and it came alive in Paris, like his world was a living theater. Haber crafted the album with his usual setup of guitar, looper pedals, and a small modular rig, all tools he regularly implements to make a lo-fi, expansive sound. But while he works with just a few instruments, the music of May a Soft Sun is sprawling and ever-evolving. Tracks like opener “This show starts in the future” have so many layers stitched together they feel orchestral in scope. Here, several plumy melodies swirl around each other and slowly meld together; at times, guitar punctures these clouds and propels them forward like the wind. Elsewhere, Haber embraces a faster pace, like with “I stutter when I speak of Life and Death,” which unfurls across a series of rippling phrases; they intertwine with anxious fervor and gradually disperse into wisps. And with closer “This show ends in the past,” Haber brings all these disparate textures into one cinematic package, weaving a piece of melancholy and hope from many different threads. So much of May a Soft Sun foregrounds those coiled, gossamer textures and lush phrases, creating a cocoon-like warmth. It’s balmy, yet it also embraces the melancholy of being alive. Listening is like taking a journey toward acceptance, one that embraces the gruesomeness of living and finds some softness in between the moments of darkness. In these melodies lie layers of sorrow, of grief, and of hope, all intertwined into one tangled and beautiful web. – Vanessa Ague, February 2026