Saturday, February 19, 2022

Rouicha - Ouaili Ouaili وايلي وايلي

Here's a great album by lotar-master Mohamed Rouicha. It's been a while since I posted anything by Rouicha, though we've recently featured some of his collaborators and an album of covers of his songs. 

Rouicha's albums rarely differ from the standard format - 4 songs over 2 sides of a cassette, all with lotar, some bendirs, and one or several female vocalists singing the song's refrains. It's a great formula, and there's LOTS of Rouicha's music available online, much of it aggregated at the Arab Tunes blog and at Ournia. I'd already posted 3 Rouicha albums here, here, and here. So I hadn't gone back through my Rouicha tapes for a while.

Somehow, though, this album didn't appear anywhere online, even on YouTube. I hadn't listened to it in a long time, and didn't remember it being this good. There's a nice organic push and pull of dynamics between the lotar and the bendirs. Some songs alternate between different melodic sections. (Middle Atlas songs often repeat the same melodic material over and over.) And of course Rouicha's touch on the lotar is always a gift. Enjoy!


Rouicha نجم الموسم رويشة
Tichkaphone cassette TCK872 تشكافون


A1 Ouaili Ouaili وايلي وايلي
A2 Ezzine الزين
B1 Mahboubi محبوبي
B2 Al Âshqin العاشقين

320 | FLAC

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