Musician, composer and a revered figure for a new generation across experimental and alternative Arabic music scenes, Kamilya Jubran (text, oud, voice) collaborates with her long-standing musical partner Werner Hasler—composer, trumpeter and electronic musician (trumpet, electronics). On Wa (Arabic for “and”), their third duo album, Jubran and Hasler continue to question listening and expression, research and desire, opening a musical universe of possibilities: a unison of timbres, cultures in counterpoint, verses in complicity, and modes and languages meeting and challenging one another—an exchange that speaks both to their origins and to the present. Lyrical and rich in contrast and ornamentation, they expand their repertoire through imaginative interpretation and improvisation. Released on Swiss label Everest Records, Wa seeks new sonic and phonetic ground, drawing on the wasla compound form from the classical repertoire of Near Eastern music and on Western modern and improvised practices—a suite-like exploration within a single composition. Across the 45-minute piece that constitutes the album, they gradually reveal the terms of an artistic dialogue nurtured since 2002: probing, opening and reframing musical modes and traditions. The chemistry between Jubran and Hasler yields a sound that is singular, original and extra-temporal. Jubran and Hasler have collaborated since 2002. Their early project Mahattaat tested ways of bringing distinct cultural and artistic roots into dialogue, followed by Wameedd (2004), which paired Jubran’s vocal imagination with Hasler’s melodies and electronic aesthetics. They later released Wanabni (2010) and Wasl (2016, with French double bassist Sarah Murcia).