By Derk Richardson  November 23rd, 2009 4:40 pm  |  Comments (1)

The music of Morocco has captivated Beats, hard rockers, and jazz improvisers for more than 40 years. For painter Brion Gysin, Rolling Stone Brian Jones, and free jazz avatar Ornette Coleman, it was the flute, reed, and drum trance music of the Master Musicians of Joujouka that mesmerized.

For trumpeter Don Cherry, pianist Randy Weston, and Led Zepellin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, the spell was cast by the hypnotic drones of Gnawa music. Listening to the new CD, Ouled Bambara: Portraits of Gnawa, the source of their fascination is clear.

Gnawa music is simple in format: Chant-like singing is supported by the plucked guembri, a low-toned three-string lute used to set rhyhtm and simple melodies, plus hand claps, shakers, and castanets. But the intention of the music—to connect with unseen spirits and keep the fiercest at bay—is deep, and the effect of extended listening is transporting.

Ouled Bambara features four different groupings of musicians recorded live during a Gnawa ceremony in Marrakech. The CD and accompanying DVD are released by Chicago’s Drag City label, which knows something about trance music, being a prime purveyor of contemporary, psychedelic-tinged  freak-folk. While not slick and punchy like you might expect from Marrakech-to-New York pop star Hassan Hakmoun, the sound quality is remarkably clear and present for a field recording.

As Todd Pitock revealed in “An Old World Finds a New Path” in the premier issue of Afar, a journey through the daunting landscape of Morocco can be both challenging and deeply rewarding. It’s the same with Ouled Bambara, in which music serves as your guide and your transportation.

For a history of the Gnawa, visit Afropop Worldwide.

Watch one of Ouled Bambara’s featured performers, Abdelkbir Marchane:

Related posts: A new Afarish guide to music and travel; Singing in the Sahara with Tinariwen

By Derk Richardson  October 13th, 2009 12:20 pm  |  Comments (2)

The October 13 U.S. release of Tinariwen’s Imidiwan: Companions, an hour-long CD packaged with a 30-minute DVD, marks a homecoming for the African desert blues band. In more ways than one.

Photo by Thomas Dorn.

Since 2001, when The Radio Tisdas Sessions brought Tinariwen to the attention of Western world music fans, the troupe of guitarists and singers has ranged far from its Saharan roots, traveling the globe and performing in venues as varied as the San Francisco Jazz Festival and a castle in Ireland, where the band opened for the Rolling Stones and played to an audience of 65,000.

Fans of West African guitar, especially the Delta blues–echoing riffs of the late Ali Farka Toure and his rising-star son Vieux Farka Toure, get their fix six times over from this string-bending ensemble.

Plus, Tinariwen, hailing from the nomadic Tuareg tribal culture, comes with a compelling 30-year back story rife with tales of exile, refugee camps in Libya, rebellion in northern Mali, sponsorship by the French band Lo’Jo, an appearance at the first Festival in the Desert outside Timbuktu, and much more.

Two polished studio CDs, 2004’s Amassakoul and 2007’s Aman Iman, enhanced Tinariwen’s reputation. But those productions slightly smoothed out the splintery grain of the band’s music. The difference on the new CD is subtle, but recorded in and around the band’s hometown, Tessalit, in the mountains of northeastern Mali, Imidiwan: Companions (World Village) is a stronger, edgier representation of Tinariwen’s music.

“We didn’t know what we were doing when we started,” Tinariwen cofounder, songwriter, and guitarist Ibrahim Ag Alhabig told UK journalist David Hutcheon for a feature in the August 2009 issue of Mojo. “We didn’t understand the [recording] process, we couldn’t take control. Sometimes, on Amassakoul and Aman Iman, we didn’t recognize ourselves so much.”

Continuing its return to roots, Tinariwen has scheduled appearances at four desert festivals in Africa: three in Mali—the Camel Fair in Tessalit, Dec. 29–Jan. 1; the Essouk Festival, Jan. 2–4; and the Festival in the Desert, Jan. 7–9—and one in Algeria, in Tamanrasset, the unofficial capital of the Tourareg people, Jan. 14–17, where Tinariwen has not played for nearly 30 years.

Watch: Tinariwen on YouTube from the Imidiwan: Companions DVD