Toudadine - Songs of Lhoucine Amentag, Tagroupit-Style

This tape comes to us courtesy of Peter at the still active, still great มนต์รักเพลงไทย blog. The group is called Toudadine. I gather that the word toudadine is the female plural in Tachelhit for the Barbary sheep (ewes). The male plural for these sheep (rams) is oudaden, which is of course the name of a renowned Soussi group that originated the tagroupit style in the late 1970s/early 1980s. 

We posted about Oudaden and tagroupit here back in 2015. Briefly, tagroupit originated in the 1980s as a sort of return to traditional Soussi rhythms and melodies as well as love songs. It was seen as a "return" in light of the 1970s innovations of the earlier, more eclectic and political tazenzart style that originated with the group Izenzaren. This 1980s return to traditional melodies by Soussi artists reminds me of the rise of new chaabi groups in 1980s Casablanca like Noujoum Bourgogne and Toulati el Farah who were also "returning" to traditional sources and lyrical themes in distinction to the 1970s proliferation of eclectic and political groups like Nass el Ghiwane.

This cassette by Toudadine is in a sort of pop-tagroupit style. It features the typical electric guitar and banjo, but 3 of the 4 tracks also feature a keyboard, and the rhythm sounds like programmed beats throughout. The group is fronted by what sounds like 2 female singers singing in unison, with a group of men as choral responders. The j-card flap reads:

أغاني متنوعة - كلمات وتلحين الحاج الحسين أمنتاك
Various Songs – Lyrics and Composition by Lhaj Lhoucine Amentag

Lhoucine Amentag (not to be confused with Hmad Amentag) was a well-known singer and composer in the rwayes/amarg tradition. My ear thinks that the first song on this Toudadine tape may not be one of Amentag's: it seems to have more of a pop structure than the other 3 songs, and the lyrics keep coming back to the word "Toudadine", so I wonder if it might be an original song of the Toudadine group.

I didn't find any information about the group online. There are several video clips of a Toudadine group uploaded by Production Disco, but they are clearly a different group - the female vocals are in a different register, it seems about 20 years removed from the group in our cassette, and the songs are very poppy, despite the traditional banjo/guitar accompaniment. (The commenters on the video clips of this group are 50% complaints about their clothes and 50% defending them for having nice voices, despite their terrible clothes. E.g., here.)

Google identified one of the songs on this cassette as "Ahbib Nyan Zound Lkhatam", credited to a "Toudadine Amazigh". Perhaps LVEM rebranded the recordings with this name to avoid confusion with the other fashion-challenged Toudadine group 😅.

Speaking of Rais Lhoucine Amentag, you can find a swell cassette of his over at Moroccan Tapes and another one at TRAD & FOLK MUSIC ON 33RPM & TAPES. I used one of the tracks from the Moroccan Tapes cassette in a mix I recently produced for Radio Is A Foreign Country called "Buzz, Rattle & Scratch: Grainy Timbres of Moroccan Music". Check that out HERE - it's a buzzy, rattling, scratchy good time!

Toudadine تودادين
La Voix El Maarif cassette 461 صَوت لامعَارف

FLAC | 320

Radio Khiyaban - Streets of Marrakesh: Field Recordings From Morocco

I stumbled across this on Discogs - street recordings from Marrakech in 2018, released by Radio Khiyaban out of the Netherlands. Sounds from walking and hanging around Marrakech, primarily at the Djemaa el Fna plaza. There's plenty of music here, including some spirited tracks from an "Electric Banjo Band", including the old Houcine Slaoui standard "Alala Yelali" and the Nass el Ghiwane standard "Allah ya Moulana", 70 and 45 years old respectively (in 2018) and still pleasing the assembled crowds! Also some nighttime Gnawa sit-down musicking with guinbri and full group. 

If you've spent any time strolling around the Djemaa el Fna, or even if not, you may enjoy this. A physical cassette edition was released but is sold out. However, the album is free to download via Bandcamp.

Muluk el Hwa - All Gnawa Album (upgrade)

A friend and neighbor of the Stash has shared with us an undistorted version of this Muluk el Hwa album. Many years ago I shared here a copy whose head and tail end are marred (or enhanced) by an amazing bit of distortion that provides a unique sci-fi cyborg-Gnawa vibe. Despite the charm of that copy, I expect many of you will be pleased to have a distortion-free upgrade.

Unlike the tape I shared earlier this week, this Mluk el Hwa album consists purely of songs from the Gnawa ritual repertoire, primarily from the opening Fraja sections of the lila ceremony. Group member Hassan Larfaoui ("Baska" ) grew up in a family of Gnawa musicians in the ritual tradition, so he brings that tagnawit feeling to the session. The rest of the group add qaraba and clapping and on some tracks add the banjo and hand drums, giving that Ghiwani edge to the proceedings.

Discographic note: My copy of this album was published on Sakhi Disque. Today's copy was released on an imprint called Sawt el Hassania (not to be confused with the Edition Hassania that released the classic early albums of Najat Aatabou). The tracks on side 1 of my tape appear on side 2 of this copy, and vice versa. Track titles below are taken from the j-card of the Sakhi Disque cassette.

Muluk Lahwa ملوك لهوى
Sawt Hassania cassette صوت حسنية

A1 Allah Allah Moulana الله الله مولانا
A2 Ahayo آه أيو
A3 Baniya بنيا
B1 Âli علي
B2 Laghmami لغمامي
B3 Zid el Mal زيد المال

256

Âita With Guinbri Really Shouldn't Work, But Tagada...

Well whaddya know? The Stash yields another Tagada tape! This dates from around 1992, when Mohamed Louz was still a member of the group. (For some historical info on the group, see our previous Tagada post.)

I wrote previously that Tagada's folk-revival approach was rooted in the âita. This album stretches things a bit, while maintaining a core texture of viola driving the melody, male group or antiphonal vocals and a bendir-driven percussion section.

"Lalla Lgada" leads things off in a typical âita mode, though with what sounds like scissors hearkening back to the âbidat errma. The strange "Ach Ngoul Lik" leads off with a pentatonic viola solo somewhat evoking the amarg tradition of the Soussi rwayes, but then the rhythm enters, featuring a Gnawa guinbri (and some faint qraqeb, I think). It sounds sort of Nass el Ghiwan-ish, except for the continued presence of the viola, which pulls the sound in a different direction. "Âyyitini" goes full Soussi, adding a banjo or lotar and naqqus for that rwayes vibe, though the singing is in Arabic, not Tachelhit.

Finally "Hada Hali" returns viola and bendir to the center of the texture with a real deep âita feel - angular bendir-s, alternating solo vocals evoking shikha song, sliding eventually into trance-based and trance-evoking lyrics, idiomatic viola riffing recalling the sweaty middle-of-the-night when the âita groove gets so heavy and REAL that it crosses over into that zone where all one can do is call prayers upon the Prophet and the saints, hope for deliverance and submit to the groove. At this point in the song, Tagada incorporate the guinbri and qraqeb again. This sounds nothing like Gnawa music, though, resembling much more the saken trance songs of the âita tradition. But with Gnawa signifiers added for intensification? Mixing these elements together is a weird, improbable idea, to which I'm sort of opposed on principle, and yet somehow... it kind of works! Well played, Tagada, well played!



Tagada (تگدة) Edition Hassania cassette EH 1462
01 Lalla Lgada (لالة الگادة)
02 Ach Ngoul Lik (اش نگول ليك)
03 Âyyitini (عيتني)
04 Hada Hali (هذا حالي)

Get it all here.

Inerzaf - The Classic Line-up with Hamid and Lahcen

best guess personnel, clockwise from top center: Lahcen Bizenkad - lead vocal, bendir; Mohamed Abdelghani - guitar, vocal; Hassan Batch - tam tam, vocal; Boubker Ouchtain - bendir, vocal; Hamid Baih (Hamid Inerzaf) - banjo, vocal.

Today's tape comes to you courtesy of Mr Tear, curator of the Snap, Crackle & Pop blog and host of the The Junk Shop radio program. It's a good one, too - a vintage tape from the group Inerzaf (or Inrzaf). Thanks, Mr T!

Inerzaf ("Wedding Guests") came together in the early-to-mid-1980s in the area of Agadir. Like tagroupit contemporaries Oudaden and Ait Lâati, Inerzaf were inspired by the wave of 70s groups like Izenzaren, Archach and Ousman, but drew more heavily on Soussi Berber musical sources, such as the amarg/rwayes tradition. And like Oudaden and Ait Lâati, Inerzaf used the distinctive combination of electric guitar and banjo.

The most renowned version of the group seems to be the one including both composer/singer/bendir player Lahcen Bizenkad and banjoist Hamid Baih. A highlight of this line-up is Hamid's virtuosic banjo playing, which is universally praised in online video comments. This version of the group was together from the mid/late 80s to around 1995. They are pictured on the j-card above and are featured in the live video embedded below:



All members of the group remained active after they split in the mid-1990s. Hamid and Lahcen both lead groups to this day, and the others have done so over the years as well. All of them use the name Inerzaf, and formations often feature more than one member of the earlier group (e.g., Inerzaf Hamid, Inerzaf Lahcen Bizenkad, Inerzaf Boubker, Inerzaf Brothers, Inerzaf Family...)

Inrzaf (انرزاف) Nassiriphone cassette NP183
A1) Ahinou Madrigh Zine - احنو مدويغ الزين - Iskert Lehouz Uwuday - إسكرت الحوز ؤوداي
A2) Allah Allah Ijra Ghikad - الله الله إجرا غكاد

B1) Yan Kirn Zine - يان كرن الزين
B2) Aoulinou Sber Idagh - اولينو صبر يداغ
B3) Samhatagh Nsemhek - صمحتغ نصمحك
B4) Oufighd Ameksa - الفغد أمكسا

Get it all here.

Sources: My info about Inerzaf comes primarily from three online musician biographies here, here, and here. Apologies for any errors or omissions.

Tagada & Louz Tagada - Venerable Viola-Driven Folk Revivalists

The group Tagada arose in the 1970s alongside other Arabophone "folk revival" groups like Nass el Ghiwane, Jil Jilala, and Lemchaheb. When I first heard Tagada in the 1990s, they struck me as a bit apart from those groups. Where NG and JJ riffed on traditional songs and genres to create new and memorable original songs and styles, Tagada's repertoire sounded to me like straight-up folk material, delivered in a manner faithful to some kind of earlier, more rustic aesthetic.

Tagada's folk sources come primarily from the âita repertoire. Here's some early Tagada from the '70s. With the banjo (which they later abandoned), this recording has a very Ghiwani vibe, similar to Nass el Ghiwane's aita-based classic L-Hassada:



I haven't found much of this early Tagada available online. I would LOOOOVE to hear what THIS version of the group sounds like:

Oh joy, I found some - here's an amazing vintage 9 minute video clip, with electric guitar, even!



According to group member Dekhouche Ahmed Roudani, Tagada, like Nass el Ghiwane, came out of the theatre troupe of Tayeb Saddiki. Troupe members Omar Sayed, Boujemâa H'gour, and Larbi Batma split from Saddiki's group after the production of the play "Al Harraz" to form Nass el Ghiwane, while the future Tagada members remained with Saddiki's group for the next production, "Maqamat Badii Ezzaman al Hamadani" (1971).

In the Tagada I remember from the early 90s, the viola had eclipsed the banjo/guitar as the primary melodic instrument in the ensemble. This amounted basically to a stripped-down folk-chaâbi sound: viola and percussion (sometimes with a plucked banjo or oud) with âita-derived call/response and group singing, without the modern sheen of keyboards or guitars and without the sexy seduction of female shikhat singers.



Tagada usually performs dressed in jellaba robes. This is similar to what would be worn by traditional male folk or popular percussion ensembles like âbidat errma or tkitiqat groups, and in contrast to both the 70s folk revival look (either with groovy vests or the outlaw cowboy look of the album cover above) and the well-dressed-chaâbi-orchestra-lead-singer-with-a-suit-and-tie look. Despite their use of traditional dress and musical sources, one non-traditional practice does stand out - Mohamed Louz's unusual drum configurations: neither the double pair of tamtams (in the "Yahli" clip above) nor the conga/bongo combination (in the "Rgibaoua" clip) are traditional for Moroccan folk music - these appear to be Louz's own idiosyncratic configurations.

The only Tagada-related tape in my collection dates to 1995. I always thought it was by the regular Tagada group, but now that I'm taking a closer look at it, I see that it reads Majmo3at Louz Tagada (Ensemble Louz Tagada). The photo on the j-card features prominent photos of Louz (bottom right) and the violinist (bottom left) who were both previously with Tagada. According to Izza Genini in the film "Tambours Battant", Mohamed Louz split from Tagada in the early 1990s, though he reunited with them for a live session in the film:



Inasmuch as I can tell from YouTube videos, Louz's Tagada group and the regular Tagada group are both quite active still today. The regular Tagada had an insidiously catchy hit back in the late '90s or early 2000's with "Ach Kayn Ach Kayn", which remains a crowd-pleaser:



Sadly, Tagada's longtime violinist Mustapha Mounafie (seen above) passed away in November 2015. Hear more of the regular Tagada ensemble at Ournia.

Majmoat Louz Tagada - Sawt Ennachat cassette (1995)
1) Lalla Rkiya
2) Atay Ya Loulid

3) Saêfni ya Rasi
4) Derriya Kouni Mra

Get it all here.

Mohamed Amrrakchi - Amarg Fusion, 90s style

Here's a well-loved cassette from my first trip to Marrakech in 1992. The j-card went missing years ago, but I did manage to scribble "Mohamed Marrakchi" on the box. Preliminary googling only resulted in references to an Arabic singer in Fessi chaabi style:

This was a far cry from the Soussi Berber rrbab-driven sounds on my old tape. Some additional googling turned up a better result, using the more Berber-ish spelling "Amrrakchi":

Blogger Ourchifali, who has several posts including lyrics of Mohamed Amrrakchi as well as this great photo here tags these posts with the term "Amarg Fusion". While nowhere near as fusion-y as music from the 2000s by the actual group Amarg Fusion, the electric guitar and drum kit do give the music a bit of what, at the time, was a modern edge. I love the punchy sound added by the kit and guitar. To my ear, they complement rather than undercut the banjo and rrbab. And the melodies are insidiously catchy. Here's some video footage of Amrrakchi with this sort of ensemble:



Mohammed Amrrakchi appears to be the brother of the more well-known Houcine Amrrakchi, who was featured some time ago over at the defunct-but-not-forgotten Snap Crackle and Pop blog.

Mohamed Amrrakchi - Sawt al Ahbab cassette (1992)
Track 1 (of 6) 


Get 'em all here.

Tagroupit in the House - Oudaden Live at Ksar al Andalus, Agadir

Well here's another Moroccan live album from La Voix el Maarif! This one is from the Soussi group Oudaden. Unlike our last live album from LVEM, which was recorded in Canada, this one was recorded in Morocco. According to the Arabic text on the spine and shell, this is a "live artistic soirée with Oudaden at the Ksar al Andalus in Agadir."

According to Anir at amazighnews.net, Oudaden recorded their first album for LVEM in 1985. (Perhaps this is it? It does say "Volulme (sic) 1".) The author characterizes Oudaden's artistic direction as being different from that of earlier groups from the 1970s such as Izenzaren. That earlier style, which came to be called Tazenzaret (i.e., in the manner of Izenzaren), was characterized both by its "revolutionary" lyrics and by the novel musical compositions of Igout Abdelhadi, who incorporated non-Soussi rhythms and melodies.

Oudaden, on the other hand, represented a return to traditional Soussi rhythms and melodies, albeit with the use of the electric guitar alongside the banjo. Oudaden also specialized in love songs. This style - love songs, traditional Soussi melodies and rhythms, with a somewhat modernized ensemble - came to be known as "Tirubba" (possibly "in the manner of a rub3a quartet"?) or "Tagroupit" (in the manner of a groupe - i.e., a modern ensemble). Oudaden group member Mohamed Jemoumekh, describes these styles as "le chaabi n tchelhit" (Berber chaâbi).

There's rather a lot of tape hiss on this one - I tried to roll off some of it in the EQ. There's loads more Oudaden over at Yala, if you want to sample some other, more hi-fi recordings of theirs.

By the way, the group name Oudaden refers to the bighorned Barbary sheep native to the Atlas mountains.

Oudaden - Live at Ksar al Andalus, Agadir (LVEM 126)
Track 2 (of 4)

Get it all here.

Like Chaâbi, Tagroupit seems to be continuing its popularity. Moroccan Tape Stash blog follower Owen Buck traveled in southern Morocco earlier this year and was treated, while dining, to a musical performance from an amateur Tachelhit group. I couldn't tell you whether the style is more tazenzaret or more tagroupit, but the great sound of banjos, drums and pentatonic melodies is undeniable. Enjoy some of this performance here:

The Guinbri in Jil Jilala before Baqbou

Early 1980's Jil Jilala personnel. 

Clockwise from top left: Moulay Tahar Asbahani, Mohamed Derhem, Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri, Hassan Miftah, Abdelkrim Elkasbaji

I know the guinbti is not the most important thing to focus on when considering the work of the venerable Moroccan band Jil Jilala. But we're pretty mgennwi here at Moroccan Tape Stash, addicted to the guinbri. So here are some notes on the use of the guinbri in Jil Jilala before Mustapha Baqbou joined the group.

Jil Jilala has had a guinbri player from its very inception in 1972. Founding member Hamid Zoughi relates that when the group was first coming together in Casablanca, they wanted to have a guinbri player join the group. So they drove to Marrakech looking for Mustapha Baqbou. Finding that he was in Essaouira, they then drove to Essaouira. But their friends in Essaouira told them to check out a different, local guinbri player, Abderrahmane Paco. They hit it off with Paco, and Paco hit the road with them to Casablanca.

I assume the earliest recordings of the group feature Paco - he's pictured on the sleeve for the single of "Lklam Lmrassa3" above - but I don't hear any guinbri on the recording. I've heard a couple times the story that Paco left Jil Jilala in the middle of a recording session, after getting into an argument about the rhythm of the song they were recording.

Of course, Paco's story continues when he joins Nass el Ghiwane. I don't know why Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri, the left-haded guinbri player who was in the initial lineup of Nass el Ghiwane, decided to leave that group for Jil Jilala, but it seemed to work out well for all. Here's a very early Nass el Ghiwane concert featuring Tahiri:



One huge difference between Nass el Ghiwane and Jil Jilala is the instrumentation and texture they used. Nass el Ghiwane tended to use the same instrumentation on most songs: bendir, tam-tam, snitra (banjo) and guinbri (plus the gwal, while Boujmiî was still with the group). Jil Jilala, on the other hand, used many different combinations of stringed instruments and percussion in their many recordings and performances. Not to mention the presence of a female singer, Sakina Safadi, in many of their 1970s recordings.

So when Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri joined Jil Jilala, he was not a full-time guinbri player. In videos from his tenure in the group, he is usually featured playing ta'rija or bendir, as in the clip below - a live performance from Kuwait. Tahiri is the one in the light blue vest, singing the solo verses in this version of "Allah ya Moulana", a song made famous by Nass el Ghiwane.



The typical Jil Jilala song from this period features one stringed instrument (a banjo or bouzouki), and some combination of percussion instruments (bendir, ta'rija, tam-tam, or congas). Now and then, Tahiri plays the guinbri, but not very often on the recordings I've heard.

The last album to feature Tahiri (prior to the 1996 reunion album), according to Smagal is from 1984, entitled "Dawiweh". I haven't found the album, but I did come across an amazing video clip of the title song. The instrumentation is an unusual, shimmery combination of 3 stringed instruments - Tahiri on guinbri, Miftah on bouzouki, and Asbahani on gnibri (something I'd never seen him play before) - plus Derhem on congas and Elkasbaji on bendir. It's a lovely piece:



Tahiri's playing is great, and very different somehow from Paco's and Mustapha Baqbou's. I suppose it's because he wasn't brought up (as far as I've heard) in the Gnawa tradition. I wonder how he learned to play guinbri back in the days before it was widely heard outside of Gnawa circles - it sometimes sounds like he's translating techniques from other stringed instruments (oud, perhaps) to the guinbri.

The only tape I have from Tahiri's tenure in Jil Jilala (whose tracks aren't up on Amazon) is this album on Edition Hassania. The catalog number suggest that it dates from the early 1980s, but many of these songs are from much earlier. (I believe that Nass el Ghiwane similarly "re-recorded their old hits" for an album on Edition Hassania around this time.) The song "Al-âr A Bouya" dates from the group's earliest days (B-side of the 45 pictured above), but is re-recorded here featuring a prominent guinbri.

Jil Jilala - Rih L-Bareh (Edition Hassania EH 1274)
01 Baba Mektoubi
02 Al-âr A Bouya

03 Goulou Lkhlili
04 Rih L-Bareh
05 Errifia
06 Jilala

Get it here.