Friday 19 September 2008

El Maleem Mahmoud Guenya

This is the first cd I've posted, and it seems appropriate that the sounds on the disc should jar slightly with the digital age. This is Gnawa music (or Gnaoua), a hybrid sound that has evolved over many years, the product of the meetings of the musical and religious cultures of black africa with the musical and spiritual traditions of the Moroccan Berbers and Arabic Muslims. It is ritual music that is performed by Maleems, or master musicians who are able to use music to induce trance states and open up spaces for communication with the spirits of ancestors. It's a music of healing and protection that is based in traditions that have travelled North through Africa, constantly adapting to shifts in the cultural landscape, but always maintaining its central purpose...even through a cd player, this still has the ability to produce strange states.

Mahmoud Guenya is one of the better known Gnawa musicians. He has recorded with Pharoah Saunders on an album called The Trance of Seven Colours. This music isn't jazz fusion or anything frightening like that, so don't be scared to give it a go. The cd we've got here was picked up in Morocco and it's beautiful, deep contemplative music that still has an irresistable groove...the metal castanets that drive the rhythm cast a spell for sure.

Get it here.

Read some stuff about Gnawa here and here.

9 comments:

MrC said...

greetings Mr Tear ... i meant to link to you t'other day! ..consider yoself linked at right now

peace
MrC ;)

(oh, & cheers for this post!!)

Mr Tear said...

I've got lots more gnawa music to post over the coming months, and i'm off to morocco again for new year, so expect more after that.

Thanks for the linkage

aduna said...

Very nice cd.
Thanks.
Feel free to visit & link Aduna.blog.

Anonymous said...

please fix the link as the download does not start, please do something as this is a very fine album of an important musician.

Mr Tear said...

Hello Anti-Hero,
you'll find a rapidshare link in the blog now and hopefully that will work.
All the best, Mr T.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, gentle Mr Tear, now it works properly and the CD is really exhuberant. I wish you all the best

Anonymous said...

hey thanks very much for this amazing tunes! is there any chance to get that in any better quality than 128kbs?
thx

monk

Mr Tear said...

Hi y'all,
The link should work now.
X

Anonymous said...

Thank you!