Then one of the Inadin produced a flute. A second found an intricate xylophone of wood and gourds, bound with leather. He tapped it experimentally, tightening a cord, while a third reached inside his robe. He tugged a leather thong — at the end was a pocket synthesizer.
The man with the flute opened his veil; his black face was stained blue with sweat-soaked indigo dye. He blew a quick trill on the flute, and they were off.
The rhythm built up, high resonant tones from the buzzing xylophone, the off-scale dipping warble of the flute, the eerie, strangely primeval bass of the synthesizer . . . “He sings about his synthesizer,” Gresham murmured.
“What does he say?”
I humbly adore the acts of the Most High,
Who has given to the synthesizer what is better than a soul,
So that, when it plays, the men are silent,
And their hands cover their veils to hide their emotions.
The troubles of life were pushing me into the tomb,
Ok, so Khaled isn’t the “Rebel of Raï” as this 2-CD set titles itself. Marketing-driven misnomers are rife; we don’t sweat it. Khaled is raï establishment, Khaled is raï king. And the Nascente CDs help explain why. Here as elsewhere, Khaled’s voice is honey, his performances nimble and generous. (For some raï context, check my 2008 piece in The National).
A survey of “the early years” (late 70s – early 90s), Rebel of Raï offers compelling evidence for the awesomeness of ’80s synths and drum machines. Nerdy listeners will enjoy the way various tunes reflect the production values of their times. There’s one glorious acoustic song from the 70s (“Trig Lycee”), and the electronic adaptations that came later, some propelled by brilliant slinky minimalism (“Hada Raikoum”): pitch-bent synthesizer, guitar snippets, Algerian rhythms inside the drum machine, voice. Here’s “Trig Lycee”, the only track on the compilation without a keyboard (cheesy or otherwise):
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Look at it this way: if you don’t mind fruity keyboard lines & occasional studio overproduction, just think of all the music out there that you can now enjoy. Khaled himself sounds great no matter what’s underneath his voice. And so suddenly a huge swath of musical food chain opens up. Another way of saying: If you really like a style of music, you love it, which means you follow it through thick (reverb) and thin. You stick with raï through the 80s and beyond, and you do not frown on Khaled’s 2009 pan-afro-euro-club jams with Magic System. Même pas fatigué…
There are people who stopped liking reggae when Sleng Teng hit (There are people, fewer of them, who began liking reggae when Sleng Teng hit). In fact, thinking about late 80s dancehall may help tunes like this work as a gateway drug to the wonderful world of pop raï. Khaled alongside Cheba Zahouania, a hugely influential powerhouse in her own right:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
I was speaking with Cheikha Rabia in Paris earlier this year, and when I asked about her favorite singer, her face erupted into a smile – the child inside looking out, eyes aglow – “Khaled!” Rabia said. “Khaled! He’s the best”.
Before Khaled was Khaled he was Cheb Khaled, and before that, he was in a Nass el Ghiwane cover band. I would love to hear a young Khaled singing NeG, if the band (“The Five Stars”, I think) recorded any…
His website, descriptively titled Khaled Mania, contains a ‘nostalgia‘ section with mp3s & videos!
we are dealing with the basics here: love and time.
“What we missed is not little,” sings Oum Kolthoum.
“Whatever I saw before my eyes saw you was a wasted life.”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
A live version of one of the world’s classic love songs! In concert, Enta Omri could continue for hours. Ahmad Shafiq Kamil penned the lyrics and Mohamed Abdel Wahab wrote the music, which bypasses the ears to enter the heart directly.
West (Cornel not Kanye) and Ralph Waldo (Ellison not Emerson) compare jazz to democracy– individuals playing with and against a group dynamic, ready to improvise and comfortable with change. Imaginative, flexible, dedicated to making their abstract tools sing: a model of social organization.
Western orchestras, on the other hand, are conspicuously totalitarian: the fixed scores, the funny black suits, musicians forced to follow the strict leader at the top, utter suppression of individuality, etc.
I wonder what they’d say about this incandescent Egyptian, whose songs move her listeners with tidal force, leading orchestras (composed of the usual suspects plus Abdel Wahab’s new friend: the electric guitar) in swooning iterations of song and theme, reacting to audience response/requests, cycling through stanzas for hours (Americans wouldn’t call it progress but we are certainly going somewhere, the same words or notes arrive but they mean different each time), emotional eddies make the river flow. Her popularity & impact remains vast, nearly compulsory, undemocratic.
Thirty years after her death, Kolthoum still outsells many popular Egyptian artists. Take that, Elvis!
Ramadan’s over, Eid just came to a close. Today’s radio show – WFMU, 91.1 fm 7-8pm – will feature celebratory music from Muslim areas of Africa and beyond, as well as the usual helpings of new heat & decentertainment.
first up, chaabi, because we miss Barcelona. I’m reading a book with a character named Thomas Lull and I keep thinking it should be Llull. This will make sense if you’ve lived there for awhile. I love the double ‘ll’ in Catalan, words like Llum (light), also a woman’s name. I’ll be playing a 2-hour set at the free SONAR party next Tuesday, will sneak in some Barcelona Maghrebi stuff.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Then, eastward. This is the sound of reggada thinking about itself, with hesitation and repetition, probably the way we all think about ourselves. Structurally ripe for DJ use.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
And a less existential reggada song, unselfconscious. From ‘La Nouvelle Génération’, a comp CD I picked up in Bay Ridge (Brooklyn):
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Princess Music at 6919 5th Ave in Bay Ridge (Bay Ridge: R stop) is the best Arab music shop in Brooklyn. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not good. It simply happens to be the best, because the competition is even worse. Princess has some headless black Sambo/Aunt Jemima style ceramic figurines too, although they’re not for sale – they’re decoration.
(Beur = verlan for ‘arabe’ ; verlan = we’ll eat this language from our side out)
Beur Fm is a powerful nationwide FM station in France with a satellite broadcast so family back the in the bled can listen in. They have 5 internet streams: the main station, 100% Maroc, 100% Rai, 100% Kabyle, 100% Orientale, and a new one called Ramadan.
Song and artist (metadata) info on all channels except 100% Maroc… That said, I can tell you that the song right now is by Jil Jilala… with Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri on guembri. I recognized his stride immediately… so clear. This moment arrives bookmarked by music I can neither recognize nor remember // beauty dovetails drift, also the way smoke works, hope rolled up and burning. to know little. to listen.
KEYWORDS: Philosophy, anti-philosophy, phalanx, food, build temporary buildings, difference between writing and idea, critics can go to hell, the coming future.
KEYWORDS: Art, thunder, noise against kids, hating kids, hating school, the awful effects of memory.
KEYWORDS: History of silent film, no such thing as silent film, shoot the piano player, fixing emotions, Benshi, love of Clara Bow, large faces, color as sex.
KEYWORDS: Cultural criticism, daily sense of history, New York Times as the most overrated newspaper on Earth, truth of our age in obituaries, institutions as sole grantor of legitimacy, progress as ideology.
+
Folk Music SMB is a nice site for… oudcentricity. lots of middle eastern/arabic albums with scanned liner notes!, including Gnawa Diffusion’s Bab El Oued Kingston (which several folks emailed me about after I posted the Radioclit sample-source tune from it).
we’re in the middle of Ramandan (“they” are in the middle of Ramadan), so – among many other things – it’s a decent time to catch Arabic music performances around the world. That’s the good news.
The bad news: many Arabic and “world music” events in New York City target an audience who can afford $40 tickets. For example: Damascus sufi Hamza Shakkur with the Al-Kindi ensemble and The Whirling Dervishes of Damascus, this Sunday, $37-42. Steep!
Here’s what we of the hungry wallets will be missing:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
On the CD’s back cover Bill Frisell says “I hope many people will have the chance to hear his new album, Home Again, made up of his own very personal compositions.” But despite the ominous signs, it’s not a bad album. Solo oud with plenty of strumming, downright banjoesque at times.
Forged endorsement is an interesting concept. Let’s save that for another post. Also, we’re starting a blog about ___ that will be bilingual, despite the fact i’m a lazy and unfaithful translator.
+ + + +
Andy was the first person to ask me about the last song featured in Masala’s post, which I hadn’t recognized when I first heard it, Do You Think I’m Sexy version from Sonido’s Rebajadas mix. Since then a lot of people have asked.
Complexe et diversifiée, la méditerranée laisse entrevoir histoires communes et singularités, entre mémoires et enjeux d’avenir.
Oui!
Damien Tallard presents “Espadrille“, a streaming selection of North African music produced and issued on vinyl in Marseilles from 1950 through the 1970s.
Marseilles occupies a special place in my heart ever since i first stepped foot there (the view from the gare!). Partly because it is reminiscent of Barcelona with the horrible tourism aspects removed, partly because it is Maghrebi, partly because of the wonderful people I meet every time I go through, a unique fold in the map… Visiting there its difficult to recommend people specific places to go — Marseilles magic, for me, is non-obvious, not immediately visual, slow-moving and deep, in a sense it is like Madrid, another city capable of being user-unfriendly at first, which blossoms the more time you spend there.
big hugs to Amèlie @ Radio Grenouille in Marseilles for the tip, look for MuddUp! re-broadcasts there soon…
Tallard’s Espadrille post contains tantalizing info — a tangle of streets, a trio of labels, a distributor — that makes me want to learn more & some lovely, annotated album artwork scans.
Any funds received can only be used to pay web-fees. Rest-assured that I will not spend your generosity on food, shelter, ice cream cones, blin-blineo, or health care. As an American in America, I gotta pay for that stuff out of my own pocket.
