A VETO OVER SUGAR

melted-icecream-cone

“One can only have a cease-fire with a state or authority that controls security,” a senior Icecream official cautioned here today. “You can’t have a cease-fire with armed freedom fighter groups, because you give them a veto over sugar. What we have today is a cessation of violence, and it can become something more if Julie Morton moves to crack down on the citizens, take away their weapons and destroy their fudge and sugar factories.”

Mrs. Morton has not yet named a new breakfast product or reformed her security forces, the Icecream Man points out, saying: “We know she needs time, and we will give her time, though she doesn’t have a limitless amount of time.”

But the day was filled with the symbolism of renewed hopes, as the Icecream Man and Pollster leaders sat at a large round table with their hosts, Amadou Hanley and Joan King Arnolds. In the hall, the Icecream Man’s flag was displayed next to the Pollsters’. Mrs. Morton sang a wordless song on Joan’s television stations while Amadou surrendered his heart to the Icecream Man in a private meeting.

“What we missed is not little,” said Joan King Arnolds. “Whatever I saw before my eyes saw you was a wasted life.” She’s talking to the shareholders. As for me, I stood by, crying.

[audio:Mudd Up Unknown – Track 05.mp3]

Mudd Unknown – track 5 (Palestinian drum machine party stomp, 16minutes)

CHAABI: AL FIRKA AL DAHABIA

It is a sad and beautiful world. People die, absence happens, tiny ants eat through wood and houses fall down. Our task: to take care of ourselves. to remember everything. to open the hand. to listen.

Music helps, even when words escape us.

These two tracks come from an excellent album, Chaabi Marocain. I love Moroccan chaabi for many reasons, sliding violins and rhythms whose complexity is social, requiring multiple players interlocking, structures of more than one.

Listen to the way that in the first song (this is two tracks on the CD, which is a nonstop medley) a 4/4 beat accelerates into the polyrhythm around 33 seconds in. Life is good. Irrepressibly so – how can you not be moved? We dance, we die. The melody from the second one versions a song – a wedding song if I remember correctly – called 55 in Arabic, a word I write as Hamza Hamzin, weird oral fragments transliterated into Castillian Spanish: they way I learned them. To step towards a language, a tongue, a body. To be gentle with what we love. To dance. Magic numbers painted on a shuttered storefront. Underneath the pavement, the beach! But underneath the beach, more pavement. Life’s line – the space of possibilities – is thin. To burn these minutes in a useful way. If you can’t count out the music let your body, it can. The songs stop abruptly because this is a medley; they are not supposed to stop.

[audio:Al Firka Al Dahabia – Track 19+20.mp3]

Al Firka Al Dahabia – tracks 19+20

[audio:Al Firka Al Dahabia – 55.mp3]

Al Firka Al Dahabia – Hamza Hamzin

RACHID TAHA

Image

[photo: Rex Features]

My latest article for The National can be viewed online here. I look back at the career of Rachid Taha.

excerpt:

To call him a rock star is to overlook his success in the Arab world as an innovative reinterpreter of rai and chaabi. To label him a pioneering figure in Arab-technopop is to forget the long shadow cast on him by The Clash and other spiky political rockers. And if he’s a rebel, then why all the lush, respectful cover versions from decades past?

Here’s the original version of ‘Ya Menfi’ (The Exiled / The Fugitive), performed by its author, Kabyle musician Akli Yahlatene: “The chains weigh tons. . . / The soup is mere water with cockroaches swimming in the dish.” Yahlatene sings about Algerians in France imprisoned, punished, or killed for their involvement in the Algerian War. Decolonization struggle words; you can think of ‘Ya Menfi’ as a musical counterpart to Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, of which Sarte said

…and Taha’s reverent take on ‘The Exiled’, from his 1998 album Diwan:

TIGHTENING A CORD

from Islands in the Net, Bruce Sterling (1988):

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,

But thanks to the synthesizer,

God has given me back my life.

 

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RAI ESTABLISHMENT

khaled

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:Khaled_Trig Lycee.mp3]

Khaled – Trig Lycee (buyable: Other has a nice writeup, Amazon)

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:Khaled_Lila Ou N’Har (duet with Cheba Zahouania).mp3]

Khaled – Lila Ou N’Har (duet with Cheba Zahouania)

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!

01101516

BIGGER THAN THE BEATLES

mudd revisited (original post was 4 years ago!):

Enta omry 1

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:01 Enta omry.mp3]

Oum Kolthoum – Enta Omri (86MB, 59 minutes)

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.

REGGADA LLUMINOSA

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:https://negrophonic.com/mp3/Abdelhak Laaroussi – Chaabi.mp3]

Abdelhak Laaroussi – ?

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:https://negrophonic.com/mp3/Reggada-Instrumental.mp3]

Reggada Instrumental

And a less existential reggada song, unselfconscious. From ‘La Nouvelle Génération’, a comp CD I picked up in Bay Ridge (Brooklyn):

[audio:https://negrophonic.com/mp3/Kirat_Mamma.mp3]

Kirat – Mamma

regada

BUT LISTEN ANYWAY

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.

Good thing Beur.Fm has internet streaming!

beurfm

(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.

PUBLIC ALEXANDRIAS

alexandria library
[Alexandria Library, from WikimediaCommons]

My Own Private Alexandria. hours of listening, plus Paul Chan’s shapely metadata –

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.

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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).

THE FOURTH LANGUAGE IS SILENCE

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:Al-SalamAl-RabiTaqsimHuzamTaqsimSikahMawwalSikah.mp3]
Hamza Shakkur – Al-Salam Al-Rabi (14.5 MB) [via]


whirling dervishes and hamza shakkur