Get It While You Can - Vintage Moroccan Cassette Audio at Hive Mind

If you aren't already following Hive Mind Records, clicky over to Bandcamp, Instagram, or Facebook and get on that list. In addition to fantastic new music releases, Marc has been doing limited releases of some great audio from vintage Moroccan cassettes. 

Out today (and for one month only) is this killer album from Maalem Abderrazak al Moustakim, who I believe is from Rabat or thereabouts. The album includes an unhurried 17-minute suite of songs related to Sidi Mimoun L-Gnawi. The sequence follows the Rabat tradition, leading from L-Gnawi eventually into Mberkiriya and Fofo Denba, but with some additional melodies along the way. It's wonderful stuff. 

Make sure you get it quick - the public link will disappear after one month. Pay what you like - the proceeds always go to good and timely causes. And get on the mailing list so you find out when he offers something old and new!

Moroccan Field Recordings at Pitt Rivers Museum

Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum offers online samples from ethnographic field recordings in their collection. Among these are some recordings from a 1961 Oxford University expedition to Morocco.



The Aït Hdidou are Tamazight speakers from the south-eastern High Atlas. The tribe are perhaps most well known for their participation in the Brides festival at Imilchil. Tracks 1-7 feature variously vocals only (1), vocals and drum (5-6), and vocals drum and violin (2-4). Tracks 5-6 sound like an ahaidous, the Tamazight equivalent of the Tachelhit ahwach.

Tracks 7-9 are street recordings from Rabat. Track 7 is listed as an Ait Hadiddu beggar, but I'm guessing that it actually is from Rabat and from the same date as tracks 8-9. The beggar sings in Arabic and mentions l-âwacher (the ten days preceding a holiday), as do the singers in track 9, and the catalog numbers indicate these tracks come from the same tape reel. I'm pretty sure I can hear a guinbri being thumped in the first half of track 9, suggesting that it's a Gnawi singing. He's invoking the saint Moulay Brahim, but it's not a melody I recognize. If this was indeed recorded in August 1961, the holiday referred to would be mawlid an-nabi - the Prophet Muhammad's birthday, which occurred around 8/24 that year.

Track 10 is some ghaita and tbel processional music from the city of Rich - back at the eastern edges of the High Atlas.

Thanks to Phong Tran for letting me know about this! It's great that some sound archives are making old and rare field recordings available to at least sample online. There are some Moroccan recordings available in the Lomax collection, as I wrote about here.

Maâlem Abdelkader Amlil - Gnawa from Rabat

 

I've been continuing to explore the offerings over at GnawaMaVie's channel on YouTube. There are a few recordings from the Rabat-based maâlem Abdelkader Amlil. Like the musicians I mentioned in my recent post about GnawaMaVie, Maâlem Abdelkader isn't often heard on commercial recordings outside of Morocco. 

I put together a playlist of about 2-1/2 hours of music from one lila performance, very nicely recorded. Many of the songs feature the fantastic Marrakchi singer Saîd Damir a.k.a. "Saghot", (He takes over the lead singing in clip number 4 of the playlist.) It's a striking performance - many of the pieces are played at a very slow tempo, allowing the singing to shine.

I have one cassette of Maâlem Abdelkader in the stash. It dates from around 2001 and features two long tracks. Hope you enjoy!

01) Shorfa (excerpt below)

02) Hamdouchia

Get it all here.