Discography

Middle-Eastern Fusion Albums

Six records of original Middle-Eastern fusion music spanning seventeen years — from the sunbaked Moroccan desert town of Zagora to the fractured rhythms of Los Angeles.

This is Where You Leave Me album cover – lionel Cohen latest
Latest

This is Where You Leave Me

lionel's most recent Middle-Eastern fusion statement — an album of farewells and thresholds, where the warmth of Moroccan strings meets the cold clarity of electronic production.

  1. The Weight of Symbols
  2. Blood That Cannot Break
  3. Listening to What Isn't There
  4. Memory of the Unborn
  5. Not Meant to Last
  6. Breathing in the Dust
  7. I Am the Epitaph
  8. Ritual of the Unseen
  9. Stitching the Invisible
  10. Roots That Do Not Bloom
  11. Gravity of a Gesture
  12. The Silhouettes of Intention
  13. Promises of Indifference
  14. Salt in the Silence
  15. The Wait Between Things
  16. Everything Unraveling Quietly
  17. Stones That Remember Touch
  18. No One Was Saved
  19. The Last Unseen Moment
  20. The Shape of What Was Not
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A Collapse of Time album cover – lionel Cohen 2021
2021

A Collapse of Time

Sixteen compositions exploring the dissolution of linear time — ancient drones dissolve into fractured electronics, and medieval modes bleed into modern synthesis.

  1. Color Only Exists in the Mind
  2. The Triumph of Death
  3. Mon Thé des Cendres
  4. Fake Healers
  5. Every Living Thing Grows Out of Every Dying Thing
  6. Animals in the Sun
  7. The Analytical Engine
  8. Land of Hardship
  9. A Victim of Apathy
  10. Light Through the Cracks
  11. Hard Work Leads to Lost Hope
  12. Reality is Just a Matter of Perception
  13. There is no Objective Reality
  14. Bleeding History
  15. Grains of Salvation
  16. The Tears That Make Sense
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Proof of My Existence album cover – lionel Cohen 2018
2018

Proof of My Existence

Fifteen tracks meditating on memory, identity, and the evidence we leave behind — a deeply personal record shaped by the immigrant's search for belonging in a new land.

  1. Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
  2. The Lies We Tell Ourselves
  3. I Sacrificed Everything
  4. We Can't Care for You
  5. The Happiest Death
  6. Freedom is a Compromise
  7. Extended War & Tea
  8. Tears Before Bedtime
  9. Patterns in My Life
  10. How Bazaar
  11. It Takes Time to Live
  12. Your Future is Behind You
  13. Once & For All
  14. The Hidden World
  15. I'm Here so You Don't Have to Be
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The Sunshine Massacres album cover – lionel Cohen 2014
2014

The Sunshine Massacres

A dark concept record — the rise and fall of a religious cult in Los Angeles, told through Middle-Eastern folk textures, destabilizing beats, and electronic dread.

  1. That Which Can Be Destroyed by the Truth
  2. Subtle Forms of Persuasion
  3. Delusionaries
  4. True Believers
  5. How to Start a Cult
  6. You Are Always Wrong
  7. Manipulatum
  8. I, Solation
  9. Us-vs-Them
  10. Clever Use of Deception
  11. Subservience to the Superior
  12. Different Levels of Truth
  13. Fiction as Law
  14. The Means Justify the End
  15. Saving Humanity One Soul at a Time
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The Weather Diaries album cover – lionel Cohen 2016
2016

The Weather Diaries

Thirteen atmospheric compositions — a sonic journal of shifting climates, both geographical and emotional, bridging the Moroccan coast and the Pacific horizon.

  1. Religion of Game
  2. Sunstroke
  3. Archaeology of the Future
  4. The Color of Poor
  5. I Died, Then Life Began
  6. Die Like Us
  7. Lying Through Silence
  8. Imitation Is Suicide
  9. Edge of the Shade
  10. The Enemy Is the Enemy
  11. The Shallow End
  12. I Am the Detonator
  13. Cycles of Rebirth
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Zagora album cover – lionel Cohen Middle-Eastern fusion 2009
2009

Zagora

Named for the desert gateway town of southern Morocco — eleven tracks evoking the dusty medinas, kasbah walls, and Saharan horizons of the Maghreb.

  1. Escape the Full
  2. Souk of It All
  3. Mosque Internal
  4. Killer Kasbah
  5. Casa Sahara
  6. Ali Is An Ally
  7. Mohammed X
  8. Mur-Akush (Land Of God)
  9. Harira & Tagine
  10. Funky Old Medina
  11. Never Trust
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The Nature of Discontent album cover – lionel Cohen 2011
2011

The Nature of Discontent

Twelve tracks of tension and longing — the uneasy coexistence of North African memory and urban displacement, set to hypnotic electronic rhythms.

  1. Discours De La Méthode
  2. Vérité Et Existence
  3. L'Entendement Humain
  4. La Raison Pure
  5. Suivant L'Ordre Géométrique
  6. Pensées
  7. L'Union De L'Âme Et Du Corps
  8. Du Monde Et De La Lumière
  9. La Transcendance De L'Ego
  10. La Direction De L'Esprit
  11. La Naissance De La Tragédie
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🏆  Best Score — Mammoth Film Festival  ·  Score for The Engineer (2024) blending Middle-Eastern tonalities with industrial sound
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lionel Cohen

French-Moroccan Composer  ·  Los Angeles  ·  Middle-Eastern Fusion

Born in Marseille to a Moroccan father and French mother — raised on ancient maqam scales and the pulse of North African medinas — lionel Cohen has spent three decades weaving the soulful heritage of the Maghreb into the modern sonic landscapes of America.

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Biography

Between Two Worlds

lionel Cohen was born in Marseille, France, into a home where two cultures converged: a Moroccan father who carried the rhythms of the souk and the call of the muezzin, and a French mother whose sensibility shaped his ear for melody and structure. These twin inheritances are the bedrock of his music — a lifelong negotiation between the ancient and the electric.

His creative journey took him first to Montréal, where he studied film at Vanier College and Ryerson University, and later to New York City, where he spent more than sixteen years cutting his teeth in rock, industrial, and electronic scenes while earning his Audio Engineering degree from The New School. In 2013, he settled in Los Angeles, bringing the full breadth of his cultural memory with him.

Today lionel is one of the most prolific independent composers working in LA — over 300 albums released through his label dna-productions, over 500 IMDb credits, scores for Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, Saban Films, and a catalog that has earned tens of millions of streams worldwide.

Maqam Scales Gnawa Rhythms Oud Ney Flute Berber Folk Electronic Production Cinematic Orchestration Industrial Textures
300+
Albums Released
500+
IMDb Credits
6+
Middle-Eastern Fusion Records
30+
Years Composing
Marseille → Montréal → New York → Los Angeles
A Life of Migration, A Sound Without Borders
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The Sound

Ancient Roots, Electronic Soul

♩
Maqam Tradition

Rooted in the modal scales of the Arab-Andalusian musical tradition, lionel's compositions draw on Hijaz, Rast, and Bayati modes — the same tonal languages heard in Moroccan Andalusian orchestras and the souks of Fès and Marrakech.

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Electronic Architecture

Trained as an audio engineer and shaped by New York's industrial underground, lionel layers electronic beats, synthesizer drones, and field-recorded textures around acoustic cores — giving ancient instruments a future-facing home.

☽
Cinematic Storytelling

Every album tells a story — a cult rising in Los Angeles, a caravan crossing the Sahara, a collapse of memory and time. His scores for Sony, Lionsgate, and indie features bring this narrative instinct to picture, earning critical acclaim and festival awards.

Sony Pictures
Film Score
Lionsgate
Film Score
Saban Films
Film Score
Gravitas Ventures
Film Score
Cadillac
Sync License
Louis Vuitton
Sync License
Vanity Fair
Podcast Theme
BMW
Sync License
Film Work

Scored for Cinema

Over 500 IMDb credits across features, series, documentaries, and shorts — with a particular mastery of films requiring Middle-Eastern and world music tonalities.

The Engineer
2024  ·  Spy Thriller  ·  🏆 Best Score, Mammoth Film Festival

Emile Hirsch, Robert Davi — Middle-Eastern / industrial fusion score

Mob Town
2019  ·  Crime Drama

David Arquette, Jennifer Esposito — true story of the biggest raid in US history

First We Take Brooklyn
2018  ·  Gangster Film

Harvey Keitel, AnnaLynne McCord

Feral State
2021  ·  Crime Thriller

AnnaLynn McCord — swampy atmospheric score

The Gemini Lounge
2023  ·  Period Crime

Emile Hirsch, Lucy Hale — 1970s mob atmosphere

Blackjack: The Jackie Ryan Story
2022  ·  Sports Biopic

Michael Rapaport, Ashley Greene, Greg Finley

Inside Man
2023  ·  Crime Thriller

Emile Hirsch, Jake Cannavale, Lucy Hale

The Long Long Night
TV Series  ·  Dark Comedy

Mark Duplass — Duplass Brothers production

Tomorrow's Game
2023  ·  Drama

Score & Music Supervision