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
Here's another cassette from the Marrakchi folk group Muluk el Hwa. I've sung their praises previously here and shared a compellingly corrupted tape of theirs here. Today's tape I digitized a long time ago but never shared it. I think it was because this j-card doesn't belong to the cassette with which it came. None of the listed song titles match what's heard on the tape, and somebody used a ballpoint pen to scribble out the catalog number 299.
The cassette certainly contains music by Muluk el Hwa, and it was issued by Sakhi Disque, the Casablanca-based label that released the other two tapes of theirs that I own. Unlike those two tapes, which contain almost exclusively Gnawa songs, this cassette contains no Gnawa songs (unless you count instrumental track that ends each side of the tape).
The songs on side 1 are traditional tunes. The opening track "Tafla Zina" has been widely recorded by Gnawa-affiliated folks, usually under the name of "Hasna ya Laila" or something similar. It has a feeling similar to the Soussiya songs that Gnawa perform at the end of lila ceremonies - the same melodic and rhythmic feel, lyrics of a popular nature, simple and catchy catchy catchy. I first remember hearing the song on a Mahmoud Guinia tape in a lovely solo vocal and guinbri version. Muluk el Hwa's recording is roughly as old as Mahmoud's, so the song has been circulating in Gnawa circles since at least the 1980s. Muluk el Hwa attributed the song to a Saharan origin. Their version seems to have different lyrics than what you hear in the many many versions of this song that you can find online.
Tracks 2 and 3 sound like traditional pilgrimage songs, though I'm not sure which saint is the destination of the pilgrimages in question. The Bahr el Ghiwane YouTube channel has shared a lyric video for these tracks. The songs on side 2 sound like original compositions, in the vein of classic Nass el Ghiwane and fellow Marrakchis Jil Jilala.
I must admit that Mluk el Hwa are more complex than I'd first characterized them. I'd originally thought of them as doing primarily Gnawa songs with a Ghiwane-type ensemble. But really they drew on a broader range of traditional material and they composed more original material than I'd realized.
Hope you enjoy - I'll have some more Muluk el Hwa posts soon!
Muluk el Hwa ملوك الهوى SAKHI DISQUES cassette S.L. ??? الساخ ديستك
A1 Tafla Zina A2 Ghir Joudouni Berdakoum A3 Dar Nnbi A Dar Aljoud A4 instrumental (ouled bambara) B1 Ayayay Lemluk Lahwa B2 Chi Rwa Min Safi, Chi Rwa Min Leghdira B3 instrumental (ouled bambara)
I stumbled across this excellent rai tape via the great Mangue Music blog, which shared a link to a bunch of live world music performances from Melkweg in Amsterdam that were recorded and released on cassette in the 1980s and 1990s. The cassettes are available to stream on Soundcloud. (I grabbed the above image from Discogs.)
The one that caught my eye/ear is called Nuit Arabe and dates from 1989. The hour-long cassette features performances from Cheb Kader, Chaba Fadela & Cheb Sahraoui, Cheb Mami, and Cheb Khaled. So great to hear these singers in front of excited audiences in their prime! There is some backstory to the rai performances at Melkweg available here in Dutch. Although the artists are all Algerian, Amsterdam has a large Moroccan community, so the shows were marketed heavily and successfully to "Moroccan Amsterdammers".
Hope you're all well here in the new year! I really will get back to Moroccan music posts this year - got some cool vinyl things to share. We recently moved (just a few miles from our old house, but it was still a lot of work), and the genocide in Gaza has made it hard to concentrate on fun artistic things for the last 15 months. Still, there is love, music, beauty, and justice. Wishing you the best of those things in 2025.
