Gnawa

Nowhere is the beat of a drum more symbolic of a culture than in Africa, where it’s forever been the heartbeat of daily life. From the trance percussion of South Sudan to the gnawagroove of Morocco, this is an exploration into a continent’s rhythmic life source.

Barbes, The Africanised suburb of Paris, could well declare its sovereignty on the strength of En Concert, an exhilarating live recording from this 17-strong conglomerate of French, Algerian, Moroccan, and Portuguese musicians. Traditional Rai, Andalusian, Moroccan, and Maghreb instruments and cultures mesh seamlessly with electric bass, keyboards, and horns to create an incendiary multicultural rave up that is nevertheless propelled by the spiritual fervor of tradition. Fusing Gnawa Trance, Reggae, Rai, jazzy grooves, and intelligent lyrics, the Orchestre National rip through 12 dramatically paced songs, at times mixing the canniness of Weather Report, the passion of Flamenco, and the exuberance of a chorus at a soccer match. Already hailed as one of the best live world music albums of all time, En Concert is an earthy celebration that evokes a tangible sense of place from the sum of its parts, happily liberated from intellectual or colonial posturing. – Derek Rath

Imagine a Middle Eastern Big Band Playing for a Multi-ethnic Parisian Crowd and You'll Get an Idea of How this CD Sounds…

In the five years following his last solo album Moon People, Nickodemus has continued to spread his global sound through endless DJ tours, recording in studios, and scouting new music for his acclaimed Wonderwheel label. He’s made some new friends along the way too, with his constant journeying helping culminate in the new full-length A Long Engagement, a sonic portrait of 25 years of connecting people through music.

On Sentir, the globetrotting, Cuban-born pianist Omar Sosa is joined not by a full band, but rather by a host of percussionists and vocalists. Sosa remains focused on communicating a kind of ecstatic, multicultural religiosity – most of these tracks are dominated by fervent chanting in one of several languages, underscored by rolling percussion grooves. Sosa's piano is the only Western instrument on the scene, a fact that somehow gives it added power. Like his previous album, Prietos, this one also has a hip-hop element, with Terence Nicholson (aka Sub-Z) contributing rap poetry on five of the tracks.

Through an arched gateway into the medina, inside a labyrinth of alleyways lined with shops selling spices and perfumed oils, rare vinyl and handmade instruments, comes the sound of the blues. Ancient and current, funky and rhythmic, buoyed by Arabic lyrics, soaring vocals and bass-heavy grooves, it seems to pulse from the heart of the Maghreb.

Electric Jalaba comprises six accomplished musicians with an empathy that feels telepathic and a groove that immerses. In Arabic, the mother tongue of Moroccan-born singer and guimbri player Simo Lagnawi, a leading practitioner of Gnawa music in Britain, they call this indefinable quality, “El Hal” – “The feeling”. “It’s the feeling that comes when we’re playing and totally forgetting where we are,” says producer and bassist Olly Keen. “The feeling of being grabbed by the music and lost in the groove.”

The Gnawa are an ethnic people in Morocco whose origins are sub-Saharan, brought into North Africa by slavery. Their healing and spiritual rites are mixtures of Yoruban Orisha diety worship and invocation of Sufi saints. Their music is unique, trance-inducing, with two main instruments: the guembri, a bass lute derived from the n'goni of West Africa, and the percussive iron qraqab, a type of castanet. This album of Gnawa music is special because all the musicians are women, a first such recording. Led by guembri player Asmâa Hamzaoui, daughter of master Rachid Hamzaoui, the six member Bnat Timbouktou defy tradition by performing in public [women typically play only among themselves, as for births and weddings and coming-of-age rites]. While maintaining Gnawa musical style, they have added some of their own lyrics that emphasize separation, suffering, and roots. Call-and-response and the constancy of rhythmic percussion soon sweep over the listener. Moreover, Asmâa is a very fine vocalist, and her smooth singing, which contrast with the often loud and gritty voices of men on other recordings, soothes and presumably helps in healing. This album offers another approach to spiritual melding.