More from Mluk el Hwa

Here's another cassette from the Marrakchi folk group Muluk el Hwa. I've sung their praises previously here and shared a compellingly corrupted tape of theirs here. Today's tape I digitized a long time ago but never shared it. I think it was because this j-card doesn't belong to the cassette with which it came. None of the listed song titles match what's heard on the tape, and somebody used a ballpoint pen to scribble out the catalog number 299.

The cassette certainly contains music by Muluk el Hwa, and it was issued by Sakhi Disque, the Casablanca-based label that released the other two tapes of theirs that I own. Unlike those two tapes, which contain almost exclusively Gnawa songs, this cassette contains no Gnawa songs (unless you count instrumental track that ends each side of the tape).

The songs on side 1 are traditional tunes. The opening track "Tafla Zina" has been widely recorded by Gnawa-affiliated folks, usually under the name of "Hasna ya Laila" or something similar. It has a feeling similar to the Soussiya songs that Gnawa perform at the end of lila ceremonies - the same melodic and rhythmic feel, lyrics of a popular nature, simple and catchy catchy catchy. I first remember hearing the song on a Mahmoud Guinia tape in a lovely solo vocal and guinbri version. Muluk el Hwa's recording is roughly as old as Mahmoud's, so the song has been circulating in Gnawa circles since at least the 1980s. Muluk el Hwa attributed the song to a Saharan origin. Their version seems to have different lyrics than what you hear in the many many versions of this song that you can find online.

Tracks 2 and 3 sound like traditional pilgrimage songs, though I'm not sure which saint is the destination of the pilgrimages in question. The Bahr el Ghiwane YouTube channel has shared a lyric video for these tracks. The songs on side 2 sound like original compositions, in the vein of classic Nass el Ghiwane and fellow Marrakchis Jil Jilala.

I must admit that Mluk el Hwa are more complex than I'd first characterized them. I'd originally thought of them as doing primarily Gnawa songs with a Ghiwane-type ensemble. But really they drew on a broader range of traditional material and they composed more original material than I'd realized.

Hope you enjoy - I'll have some more Muluk el Hwa posts soon!

Muluk el Hwa ملوك الهوى
SAKHI DISQUES cassette S.L. ??? الساخ ديستك

A1 Tafla Zina
A2 Ghir Joudouni Berdakoum
A3 Dar Nnbi A Dar Aljoud
A4 instrumental (ouled bambara)
B1 Ayayay Lemluk Lahwa
B2 Chi Rwa Min Safi, Chi Rwa Min Leghdira
B3 instrumental (ouled bambara)

FLAC | 320

Alan Lomax's Moroccan Tape Stash

 

Well, his Moroccan stash is but a tiny tiny pinch of shake from his huge stash of field recordings. His recordings of American folk music are, of course, the most famous, but he also did his share of international recordings during his many years of research.

Association for Cultural Equity and the Alan Lomax Archive recently went live with over 800 hours of sound recordings as well as video and photographs from Lomax's collection. Perhaps the mother of all tape stashes!

I had no idea Lomax had recorded in Morocco! I'm just starting to dip into this collection, and I'll try to link to anything that particularly catches my ear.

First question I had, of course... is there any Gnawa music? Indeed, there is one short piece recorded in the Djemaa el Fna in Marrakech - it's an excerpt from "Negsha".

Explore the Moroccan collection here.
Explore the entire audio collection here.
Or start at the main menu to get to photographs, video, and other resources.

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UPDATE:
I found 2 more short Gnawa tracks, in Lomax's recordings from Fez. They are from outdoor processional âada repertoire, thus feature the tbola rather than the guinbri. The recordings were made at the moussem of Moulay Idriss, and include recordings of Aissawa and Hamadcha as well!

Post-Miloud Moussem Mayhem Music from Meknes - Aissawa!

In the weeks following the Eid al Miloud, pilgrimage celebrations (moussem-s) are held all over Morocco at the shrines of local awliya saints. Possibly the biggest of these celebrations is the moussem in Meknes for L-Hadi ben Aissa, eponym of the Aissawa brotherhood. Pilgrims from across the region and across the country descend on Meknes for a 2 weeks of devotion and renewal, and nights of trance music.

Here are 2 tapes of Aissawa music I picked up in Meknes ca. '99. Unlike the released CDs of Aissawa music available in da West (featuring groups from Meknes, Marrakech, and Fes), these tapes make no pretense of presenting a balanced overview of the Aissawa ritual. That is, they don't include any of the lovely sung poetry in honor of the Hadi ben Aissa that would typically open a ritual performance. They cut straight to the chase, hitting the ground running with with blaring ghaita oboes and pounding tbel drums!

I'm not familiar enough with Aissawa music to know if these tunes are from the trance repertoire or from the street/processional repertoire. Whichever it is, these are some serious long jams - the group riffs it non-stop for 3+ sides of these 2 volumes:


Most of Vol 2 side 2 is taken up with a suite of melodies in 5/4 - it sounds like the rhythm used by the Hamadsha brotherhood.


If anyone can identify any of the melodies or the context of these recordings, please let me know!

At any rate, this is definitely a live performance - either the musicians, the microphone, or all of them are in motion - the oboes and drums change places in the mix constantly during the recording. Add to that some weird phasing that carries on through most of the tape, just the right amount of crowd noise, chattering and occasional chanting, and you've got an unintentionally awesome Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka vibe!

Get it here and here.

Grab Bag o' Izlan & 'Aita from mrsblucher

First off - if you use Firefox, I highly recommend you install the Lazarus add-on - it makes a cache of things you type in forms so that if you spend 2 hours writing and formatting a nice blog post or email and then Blogger eats your draft (or your system crashes), you can recover what you wrote rather than having to start from scratch again. Unfortunately, I learned that a little too late - I'd meant to post these a couple weeks ago, but haven't had time to re-write my post since Blogger ate my draft...

Many thanks to mrsblucher for passing along this cache tape dubs! Some found objects, some heard in long taxi rides, and some obtained for their bitchin' covers. Mrsblucher recently posted a cool rai tape to his new blog, which you should check out. (Lots of other great vinyl goodies over there, including bird song, post-punk, and Boris Karloff reading Aesop's fables...)

On to the goods: 

Cheikh el-Maati el-Marrakchi (Sawt Al Menara, TC, Morocco)

A kicking 'aita offering (sounds like Safi-style to me) with viola and oud, darbuka, bendir and ta'rija, and a trio of unidentified vocalists belting it out. I could listen to this stuff all nite long...

A01) Suwwel ya L-Kubida / 'Ala Qablu Jaya / Ghzali Ghzali / Rja' Ya L-Mkhasmni
B01) Rja' Ya L-Mkhasmni (cont'd)
B02) Hadik Mmwi, Hadik Khti / Haouz Haouz
B03) La Bas

Get it here. 

Salah Asmaali - (Editions Hassania EH1125, 

TC, Morocco, 198-)

Some 'aita song lyrics have verses that flow together into a more or less narrative or structured form. Others are really free flowing, allowing singers pick and choose couplets from a stock repertoire to suit the mood of the audience. In this stripped-down 'aita recording (one viola, one bendir, occasional finger cymbals), the single vocalist delivers a string of short couplets over the course of 2 sides. I could only match one song title definitively (L-Gnawi, at the end of side 2) - the rest of the pieces follow the unidentified singer on a taxi ride through a landscape of stock themes - lost love, persecution, shout-outs to different cities, madness and possession.

I think this style, which features long viola answers to each sung couplet, is called za'riya, but I could be wrong.

A01) Hsab Za'ri - Sherrebuk Elluz
A02) Saleb 'Aqli
B01) Tab Qalbi
B02) Ma Lqit Ahbab - L-Gnawi

Get it here. 

Salah Asmaali - (Editions Hassania EH1127, 

TC, Morocco, 198-)

Another tape from the same violist, but with in different style. It opens up with some more za'riya, but then moves into more structured songs with refrains and a chorus of vocalists and several percussionists. The blatant patriotism of "Sahara Biladi" is balanced by the cool pilgrimage song for Moulay Abdellah.

A01) Wash Ja Idir / Moulay Abdellah ben Imghar
A02) Hada Hali Ya L-Mwima
B01) Sahara Biladi / Erribta Ezzughbiya

Get it here.

Unknown Artist - Middle Atlas Amazigh Guitar (Voix Bassatine) (found tape, Morocco)

And rounding out the cache is a swell find - more of that great slinky electric-guitar-driven izlan from the Middle Atlas. Wish I knew who the artists were! Unlike the tape shared in my previous post on this style, the ensemble here adds a viola and synth bass to the mix.

5 rocking tunes here.

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And don't forget to visit mrsblucher's blog to complete the cache with a groovy rai compilation tape.

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