Mâalem Mohamed Daoui - Gnawa Variétés From Meknes - Track 2 Destroyed Me

 

Here's a nice old-school Gnawa cassette from Mâalem Mohamed Daoui. During my research days (late 1990s - early 2000s), Daoui was the most well known Gnawa mâalem from Meknes. I believe he was the primary interlocutor for the German researcher Frank Welte, whose Der Gnawa-Kult: Trancespiele, Geisterbeschwörung und Besessenheit in Marokko (1990) was one of the first books on Gnawa ritual and repertoire. 

The cassette contains 3 tracks - the first is a 25-minute non-stop suite of songs from various sections of the Gnawa lila ceremony (black, blue, and red songs). This track crosses sides 1 and 2 of the cassette, but I was able to edit them together relatively seamlessly. 

The track that destroyed me was the second track. I made the mistake of transferring this tape when I was trying to do work for my day job. "Moulay Abdellah Ben Lhoucine" came out of the speakers and within about a minute my hair was down and I was stamping the floor with my bare feet and banging my hands on my desk/workstation. (Good thing I am working remotely these days...) The singing unfolds at its own pace, going on as long as it needs to, to give a listener (trancer) the lines of text that invoke the ambience of wali (saint), while the guinbri marks time, provocatively, underneath, and the choral responders keep the energy high and provacative. On the ritual floor, singing would continue until the mâalem judges that trancers are competently riding the groove and are ready to interact directly with the guinbi. His manipulation of riffs responds to (or provokes) the movements of whatever trancing body is directly in front of him, moving in dialogue or in concert with his guinbri. In this state of heightened musical awareness, trancers are keenly aware of the slightest variations of phrase, accent, and volume level. The job of the mâalem is to give the trancer the musical support to express in movement whatever needs to expressed. This track, better than most Gnawa tracks you will hear, gives a sense of how that conversation unfolds - though of course you are only hearing one side of it.

Daoui الضاوي
Variétés Marocaines Gnaoui منوعات ڭناوية
Sawt Isamailia cassette 015 صوت الإسماعلية

A1-B1 Berkilia - Fofo Denba - Lgnaoui Baba Mimoun - Samaoui - Marhaba Sidi Komwi
B2 Moulay Abdellah Ben Lhoucine - Moulay Brahim
B3 Mekkaoui Habib Allah - Âmmar Douwaya Abdellah

FLAC | 320 

Les Frères Talbi - Wallah Ma Qaddit

More vintage 1993 music this week, but from the eastern edge of Morocco rather than the west. This is a swell rai cassette from Al Ikhwane Talbi, aka Les Frères Talbi, that is, the Brothers Talbi (literally) or better the Siblings Talbi or the Family Talbi (idiomatically), specifically Abdelkader and Sara. 

1993 was a big time for rai music internationally. Moroccan artists had some national successes in the rai style, especially those from the northwestern cities of Berkane and Oujda. Those cities share regional musical styles similar to those of northwestern Algeria like Sidi Bel Abbès and Oran, the birthplace of rai. The Family Talbi hail from Berkane, and they had a breakout hit with the title track of this album, the catchy "Wallah Ma Qaddit"

According to a 2007 interview with Abdelkader [1], the Talbi family group went to France after their initial Moroccan successes to try their luck there. After some time in France, they returned to Morocco. Rai had declined in popularity at that point, so Abdelkader had the idea to work on new music based on the reggada folkloric style he grew up with in Berkane. He adopted the stage name Talbi One, and appears to have had a successful career as a pop-reggada artist - you can find Talbi One's music on all of the streaming platforms. Here's a 2019 track from him - it's got a great sound, and 19 million views to boot!:

Back to today's cassette: The Discogs entry for the album notes that arrangements were done by one Mustapha Asker, who appears to have worked with many great Algerian rai artists (Hasni, Nasro, Fadela...). However, I don't see Asker's name anywhere on the cassette shell or j-card. Whoever did the arrangements, they are nice. The bass player in me is delighted to hear some actual bass guitar rather than a synth bass here:

Abdelkader & Sara - Al Ikhwane Talbi عبدالقادر و صارة - الاخوان الطلبي
Wallah Ma Qaddit والله ما قديت
Dalaïphone cassette 5 ضالعيفون

A1 Wallah Ma Qaddit والله ما قديت
A2 Leila ليلى
A3 Lbareh Jani البرح جاني 
B1 Sidi Lhouari سيدي الهواري
B2 Toulmonde Iparti تولومند إبارتي
B3 Gouloulou Iwelli قولولو يولى 

FLAC | 320

[1] Interview with Talbi One by Fatima Nouali, Marrakech Express, RTM (Moroccan TV) 2007. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3513729372096559

Paco Abderrahmane - T'hayyer A Moul al Hal (new rip, remix, remaster)

Here's new digitization of one of my favorite Gnawa cassettes. I shared a version of this back in 2011. I recently obtained a new copy of the tape and a new cassette deck too, so I thought I'd try to improve the sound compared to the earlier version. 

This is an album by Paco Abderrahmane (of Nass el Ghiwane, as the j-card points out). It features 4 songs from the Gnawa repertoire. See my original post to hear me sing the praises of the instrumentation and ensemble.

A couple of things strike me upon listening to this album again. 

1) Paco's singing. It's completely unrestrained and I love it - he reaches for notes and doesn't always hit them, but I'll take his conviction and energy on every failed attempt over a smooth restrained performance any day of the week. 

2) The swing of the guinbri. The way Paco's guinbri lines sit on the beat FEELS different from what I hear from players of the Marrakech school (Boussou, Baqbou, Sam, Baska, et al. ), but I find a similarity with the feel of Mahmoud Guinia's playing - so maybe it's an Essaouira thing. Like maybe they're playing more on top of the beat where the Marrakech players play a little behind it. I may be completely wrong... 

I may also have been wrong to try to remix this cassette. The tracks on side A were recorded or mastered very hot, and the vocals max out in the refrains - even when I split the stems and tried to work on the vocal sound there was not much I could do for the distorted passages. I tried to give some more definition to the guinbri and the tbel barrel drum, but it was a challenge since they exist in a similar frequency range. (I think that's one reason those instruments are not played together very often.)

Anyway, I'm tired of tweaking and re-tweaking the eq, imaging, and other settings. I'm an amateur engineer, so this has been, shall we say, a "learning opportunity" for me. I'm happy with some of the results, and meh with other parts of it. So what I'll do is share my remix as well as a raw rip of the cassette (which is at least an improvement over my 2011 rip). And the music is still fantastic, whichever version you may prefer. 

Raw cassette rip of track 1 (below) for comparison with remix version (above in YouTube clip), if you're interested in that kind of thing:

Best of luck to your teams of choice in the World Cup, or boycott the whole damn thing if you are so inclined.

Thayyer A Moul Al Hal Mâ  تحير امول الحال مع
Paco Abderrahmane باكو عبد الرحمن
(Nass el Ghiwane ناس لاغيوان )
Edition Sonya Disque cassette ESD 322 سونيا ديسك
1993 + Moroccan Tape Stash Remix 2026

A1 Subaîi السباعي
A2 Lyaburi اليابوري
B1 Damman Lbled ضمان البلاد
B2 Lâtfa Lillah العطفة لله

Raw Rip: FLAC | 320
Remix/Remaster: FLAC | 320