Jean Mazel Moroccan Field Recordings via Tuluum Shimmering

Here's a vintage stash of folk music field recordings made and released in the 1950s and 1960s by one Jean Mazel, a French cinéaste and ethnologue, about whom I can find little information online. Most of his published recordings (and a disambiguation with a namesake) can be found here, and a number of his publications are listed here.

Jean Mazel

The recordings presented here were originally released on one 10-inch album (33 RPM) four 7-inch EPs (45 RPM). They have been resequenced and made available for streaming/download by the "UK-based one-man trancedental-drone band" Tuluum Shimmering:



In addition to being offered in their raw form, the Moroccan recordings have been incorporated into 3 CDs worth of Tuluun Shimmering's psychedelic recordings, also available from their Bandcamp page, or as CDs from their homepage.

The original 10-inch album features linking narration in French. If you're interested to hear it in its original state, check the YouTube clips below. (I'm happy to have the narration removed in Tuluum's version. It reminded me of the pretentious voiceovers I heard between acts at the Folklore festival in Marrakech in 1995.)




I went looking online for the original artwork/notes, and to see where the original tracks fit into Tuluum's sequence. If you're interested in that sort of thing, you can find the images I collected and my crosswalk spreadsheet here.

Thanks to tape aficiondo and old Berkeley pal @boxwalla for calling my attention to this.

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.

3 Rwayes 3: Demsiria / Ihihi / Atigui

It's Easter Sunday here in Northern California, and we've got some much-needed rain!

Here's another swell tape from Nathan Salsburg's collection. The first rwayes supergroup? According to the author of this post, "Moulay Hmad Ihihi had the idea of putting out the first album combining a number of singers." This album, dating from 1981, features these three rwayes:

• Raïssa Rkia Demsiria (الرايسة رقية الدمسيرية) who was already well known by this time, having had her first hit in 1968 with "A Taxi Ghilla Radio"
• Raïs Moulay Hmad Ihihi (مولاي أحمد احيحي) - veteran singer, composer and player of the lotar (not the big pear-shaped, low-pitched lotar used by Middle Atlas musicians like Rouicha, but the round-bodied, high-pitched lotar used by Soussi musicians.
• Raïs Aârab Atigui (الرايس أعراب اتيكي), singer and rrbab player for whom this cassette was his first (and some say finest) release.

Memorable melodies and traditional textures make this a lovely addition to the stash. I'm not sure whether the lead vocals on tracks 3, 5, and 6 are by Ihihi or Atigui - any help would be appreciated!

Demsiria - Moulay Hmad - Aârab (Edition Hassania EH 1167) (1981)
1) Ark Tella Tarikta (vocal Raïssa Rkia Demsiria)
2) Afis Aygigel (vocal Raïs Aârab Atigui)
3) ???
4) Mata z-Zmanad (vocal Raïssa Rkia Demsiria)
5) Taghaous Aidba Bens
6) Arniyat Isella Lhem

Get it all here.