mudd up!

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.

 

+ + +

I picked up a mesmerizingly good Mohamed Rouicha CD (for 1 euro) in Madrid (Lavapies, c/ Tribulete 9) last month and listened to it nonstop for days. Then it disappeared. A few days later my laptop died (not a light death – very dead). Soonafter that, my MP3 player was stolen.

I’m obliquely reminded of a phrase I read in Richard Skelton’s excellent Landings book yesterday: “All that mattered was without weight or consequence. Nothing lingered or resonated beyond the instance of its own making. Everything listened.”

There is a word for words who have lost their meaning and remain as sound, most commonly preserved in traditional songs. I can’t remember the name of this word.

Here are two Rouicha tracks. I don’t know any of these words – Berber words, Tamazight – but I wish I did, especially in the first one which is essentially a long poem kissed by outar flourishes. The outar is Rouicha’s instrument of choice, a gentle, rustic thing that looks as if it were dug up from the earth.

Mohamed Rouicha – Harqat Mensafer

Mohamed Rouicha – Jabnadem

apparently, sometimes Safari thinks that this site contains malware. I’m looking into it… if it does, it won’t be there for long. Apologies for any hackery weirdness.

Out the door to record over in Bushwick, so quickly -

Night music, Berber fusion, info here:

Nour Eddine – Zri Zrat

+ + +

Alva Noto & Anne-James Chaton vs. a Japanese vending machine.

+ Anne-James reading in low light

The Berbers, cracked audio plug-in software, Donna Haraway circa 1991, Jody Rosen contemplating drained negro emotionalism, a high-end recording engineer, Tallahassee Pain, a Muslim producer named Wary: AUTO-TUNE UNITES US ALL.

This is another way of saying: check out my essay on Auto-Tune for the current issue of Frieze Magazine.

Auto-Tune is something I’ve been thinking about – and chasing after – for awhile now. It was a great pleasure to be able to condense my thoughts on it, which began a half-dozen years or more, picking up auto-tuned Berber music in Barcelona & Madrid.

Vocal purists hate Auto-Tune. They hear in its robotic modulations some combination of sugar-rush novelty, bulldozed nuance, jejune synthetics, loss of ‘soul’, disdain for innate vocal talent, teen-optimized histrionics, emotional anemia, and/or widespread musical decline. It’s ugly.

“We had to give up Berber and reject French. I said no! I played hooky in all my Arabic classes. Every class that I missed was an act of resistance, a slice of liberty conquered. My rejection was voluntary and purposeful.” – Matoub Lounès

Matoub Lounes – Attan Ne Mmi

Oud, percussion, lyrics in a language holding fire underneath its tongue. His life work, soaked in lethal politics. We can start the journey by saying: auto-tune-free Berber freedom music.

the metadata for this album ZIP includes a Matoub Lounes facebook page.

+ + +

Elsewhere, Mike Davis reminds us that the swine flu issue is not a problem based in Mexico City, but one flowing from places like Tar Heel, N.C. or Milford, Utah – agribiz USA corporate farms and their foreign outposts. “Capitalism and the Flu“.

Although the Mexicans were the first to make songs about it.

Back in Brooklyn with a CIAFRICA woodcarving + at least a full day’s worth of north African music. Not to mention hours of interviews, but that’s another story.

Here’s new Moroccan Berber music from Hafida. Henna, check. autotune, check. animated butterflies, check. If you like these 2 songs you’ll like the entire self-titled album, it’s pretty much an extended jam.

And no, dear Hafida never turns off her autotune. If that’s not love, what is?

Hafida – Tifrkin Tena Ourtahlin + Ghayli Ghayteflt (buyable)

& video of a medley from the same album

Hafida ” Ayan dar illa zine ifkas lkhatr…”

[français]

Spacious and peaceful, gentle Amazigh production from one of the big groups in this style. Banjo, reverb, delay, more reverb, more delay, and those hard-panned drum machines.

Oudaden – track 3

i’ve been jamming to this song for awhile, thinking it was something completely different… turns out I nabbed it from Awesome Tapes. Full k7 here.

Oudaden neglects what appears to be their own blog(s), and some fans neglect kindly maintain what appear to be Oudaden fan blog(s).

It’s interesting to think about the decay of online information – from dead links slowly cutting apart our little connective webs to fierce new spam algorhythms quietly gumming up the sites you visit – or mimicing them. Some hacker specializing in legacy databases breaks into your old WordPress admin board and replaces everything with links to discount pharmaceuticals. 10 years from now? 5? How do the InterNests age?

as we think about degraded webs (allegedly spiders on benzedrine but i’m skeptical)…

let’s listen to more peaceful Moroccan music: faraway-sounding Maalem Mahmoud Gania, also twelve minutes long, as long as it needs to be.

Mahmoud Gania – Essaouira
Gania previously mentioned here.

“You’re one of the most interesting people I know!” I tell her, again.

But she doesn’t believe it. She started surveilling her neighbor – to see if his life is as boring as hers is.

+ + +

Rise of the Singing Robots – David Decks on autotune.

I Like Listening to Awesome Tapes from Africa – Andy Moor.

some mudd on each.

Kingdom tonite on the radio! Tune in, this show should be good..

plus, Mode Raw blogs!

plus, 2 Amazigh pop jams as mid-morning fuel. REAL POP = INSTANT HAPPINESS with a dreamy aftertaste.

Takfarinas – Zaama Zaama

a big hit! Tamazight lyrics, French hook. This has been bootlegged onto the “Oriental Vibes” vinyl which Broklyn Beats stocked awhile back. Kabyle stormer with international legs.

& here’s one of those 10 minute Berber male & female autotune duets (which i can’t get enough of)

Varietes Amazigh – track 7

in London, the shop clerk looks at my Dutty Artz t-shirt and says: “where’d you get that?”

me: “I made it. This is my label. We hired someone in the States to make them.”

him: “Oh, OK. Well I just wanna make one shirt – for me. it’s gonna say: IF YOU’VE GOT A PROBLEM WITH ME, I DON’T CARE, BECAUSE THAT’S YOUR PROBLEM.”

He says it drained of all emotion, like he’s reading a grocery list. I’m startled and look at him to make sure it isn’t some kind of joke. It isn’t. I am in Britain.

I say “OK”.

He says “would you like a bag with that?”

I say “yes, thanks.”

+ +

click on this if you want a t-shirt (or our music!), we have some left:

AwTaFrAf mostly hangs out in sub-Saharan Africa, so when he heads north, I’m happy. Cassette from Berber country! with extra helpings of reverb and echo underneath that.

Oudaden – track 5