Aleppo
By Alice Limoges
Diala Brisly (Cover Artist)
In 2014, I visited my brother Barrett in Amman, Jordan and had my perspective flipped upside down. As an American, every crisis in the Middle East felt so far away, but when I met my brother’s Syrian roommate Muhammed, it became suddenly tangible. Aleppo was his home city. He had a fiancée there but they were forced to take refugee in different countries. In a world where being a Syrian refuge means your passport can't cross borders, I found it heartbreaking to imagine them never getting to see one another again. In recent years, Aleppo was bombed and the last hospital was destroyed. This song was written to mourn what Syrian refugees have to go through. The cover art was created by Diala Brisly, a Syrian artist and dear friend of mine.
About the artists
Alice Limoges
Born and raised on a mountain by the sea in coastal Maine, Alice Limoges was singing before she could walk. After 7 years of living, touring, and recording in NYC, the COVID pandemic brought Alice back to her hometown, where she is joyfully creating music, teaching music lessons online, and hiking every week. Alice has released three independent albums to date. Her song “No One Underneath” was was a semi-finalist in the 2019 International Songwriting Competition. She played on the Grammy Award winning album "Ageless: Songs For The Child Archetype" by Jon Samson. Alice's concerts are intimate and vulnerable. She instantly pulls the audience into her world with personal stories and even invites them to sing with her, hoping to share a little magic with them. She has performed extensively across NYC and the northeast, including festivals (Make Music Harlem, NYC; Keene Music Festival, Keene, NH; The Campfire Festival, Cambridge, MA; Belfast Free Range Festival, Belfast, ME), colleges (Columbia University, Hamilton College, SUNY New Paltz, SUNY Purchase), and other legendary venues such as The Cutting Room (NYC), Rockwood Music Hall (NYC), PIANOS (NYC), Arlene’s Grocery (NYC), Club Passim (Boston), and Blue (Portland) as well as countless intimate concerts with Sofar Sounds.
Diala Brisly bio (cover artist)
Diala Brisly bio (cover artist): I hope that my visual work might stand as a testament someday to the historic events that have unfolded around me and the social issues that have driven the heart of my work. Art is a means to empower people, and several themes have consistently run through all my projects; social justice, freedom for the Syrian people, and a desire in particular to give a voice to children, the most voiceless and most vulnerable among those who have been targeted in Syria’s current turmoil. Born in Kuwait to Syrian parents in 1980, I grew up in Damascus and was based there until the uprisings sent me and legions of other artists fleeing to Beirut. My artistic and activist work has been based there ever since. I began as a cartoonist at the Syrian-based Spacetoon channel in 2001, where I received my first training, and soon began as a layout artist for the fledgling cartoon series. Since then, my career has spanned a variety of mediums and capacities, including layout design, animation, concept art, painting, comic books, and character design. Artistic participation in campaigns and political events has been a driving force for me. The artwork as a participation I did on the Adra Women’s Prison hunger strike campaign helped secure the release of 23 women prisoners. Now I more focus on spot lighting on the education situation of Syrian kids, and refugees in general, in 2014 I started my own initiative making murals in the refugee camps and alternative education centers to encourage kids going back to school after skipping for few years because of the war.