A lot of Sarah Ibrahim’s friends define her music as “ethereal gibberish,” but the Syracuse University junior, who goes by the stage name Midnight Discord, doesn’t mind that her music doesn’t fit perfectly into any one genre.

“Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going for in my sound,” said the magazine journalism major. “I just make.”

Ibrahim’s stage name is a moniker for the time of night when she can freely create and release her pent-up energy. Ibrahim has already self-released a few EPs and has more planned to come soon. She has been trading demos and collaborating with German DJs she met on SoundCloud, and is now close to signing a deal with student-run label Syracuse University Recordings.

Born and raised in Kuwait by an American mother and an Indonesian-Kuwaiti father, Ibrahim became interested music when she was 11 years old. She taught herself how to play guitar, then fooled around on the keyboard and the bass. Soon she found she could play a little bit of everything.

“I feel like it was always in my genes,” she said. “My aunt is a conductor and a composer.”

But growing up practicing Islam in Kuwait was not an environment that encouraged her to make music. She went to a gender-segregated Islamic school that offered no music courses.

“Traditionally in our culture, music is prevalent, like drums and people doing tribal chanting and dancing,” she said. ”But was I discouraged from following music? Yeah, I was, definitely.”

When she came to America on a scholarship, Ibrahim was finally in an environment where she could express her musical creativity, which was previously limited to the secrecy of her bedroom in Kuwait.

“I have all these interests that are not encouraged where I’m from in my own home,” she said. “So I needed to go somewhere where this can be widely  OK and I can meet people that are more like me.”

Ibrahim’s freshman year roommate, who was assigned to her randomly, couldn’t have been a more perfect match.

Adrianna Cummings, a Syracuse native and a musician herself, said she received a message from Ibrahim on Facebook not long after the two were assigned to live together.

“We liked all of the same music, all of the same bands, a lot of the same art,” said Cummings, a junior painting major. “We were like, ‘Yes, we need to make music together.’”

And as they made more music, Ibrahim spent much of her first two years at Syracuse performing at open mic nights.

Last year, she tried taking her talents to a bigger audience at a basement show, opening for Syracuse-based band minnoe, but she said it was a disaster and she hasn’t played live since.

“Nerves get to you,” Ibrahim said. “I could feel (the crowd’s) breath on my neck.”

She froze, but after regaining her composure, she used a looping pedal to perform her cover of “Kids With Guns” by Gorillaz, and got the crowd into her set.

Looping, where tracks can be recorded and played on top of each other, is a technique the casual music fan might know from Ed Sheeran’s live performances. Ibrahim takes the technique from one of her biggest influences, Kimbra.

“She uses her voice as an instrument which I find to be really intriguing and inspirational,” said Ibrahim. “She’ll hook up her mic to loop peddles and just loop, and loop, and loop.”

Ibrahim said she draws other inspirations out of a variety of genres, from classic jazz musicians such as Sarah Vaughan to neo-psychedelia bands like Tame Impala.

Her artistic expression is just as visual as it is audible. In addition to music, Ibrahim loves to paint, hone her videography skills and take photographs. Her photography was recently featured on the Tumblr page of online magazine Golden Boy Press, which she interns for.

“Jack of all trades, master of none,” she said. “I think that defines my life.”

Published on February 16, 2016 at 8:22 pm

Contact: jtbloss@syr.edu | @jtbloss