#guimbri

Mind Maintenance - s/t LP - 

Photo by Jason Lazarus

Simultonality by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society

Dusted, and particularly this writer, stands corrected. The last time we dealt with Joshua Abrams and the Natural Information Society was in a review of Anemometer, the group’s summit with the Bitchin Bajas. That review suggested that the Bajas brought the krautrock influence while Abrams was responsible for the Gnawa and world jazz references, but we were too binary for our own good. On Simultonality's “Sideways Fall,” which takes up half of side two, drummers Mikel Avery and Frank Rosaly lean into Jaki Liebezeit’s beat pattern for Can’s “Vitamin C.”  

Algerian gnawa singer and instrumentalist Hasna el Becharia was one of the revelations of Afropop Worldwide's visit to the Musiques Mètisses festival in France in 2002.

The music cast a spell over the largely north African audience, many of whom sang along with Hasna throughout the show.

I noticed that many people in the audience knew the songs and sang along with you. Did they know them from the CD?

HASNA: Yes. From the CD.

Are these your compositions?

HASNA: Yes, most of them.

Tell us about a couple of songs.

HASNA: "Hakmet Lakdar." That says, "It is by chance that I am here." I sing for my son, myself and my parents on this record. Another is "El Lil Lil, el Lilibiya." That's by a Moroccan artist, Maâlem Zouzou. "Bouri Bouri Manandabo" is a traditional gnawa song.

I hear some Berber rhythms in your music. Is that there?

HASNA: A little. Yes. I learned all that from my father.

We've mostly heard gnawa music from Morocco. Is there a lot in Algeria as well?

HASNA: It's less in Algeria. Before, there were a lot, but they're all dead. Now, it's just the young who do it a little, but not like before. In Morocco, there are a lot, even young people. With us, everything is being lost.

Where you learned, Béchar--is that near big cities? Is it in the desert? What's it like?

HASNA: It's a desert town, very near the Moroccan border. It's a small town. It's all the same family, the gnawa of Béchar and Morocco.

And what language do the gnawa speak?

HASNA: They speak Soudania. But there aren't many gnawa now who still speak Soudania. My father spoke Soudania. But there aren't many left. They've all died.

We know about the problems of the Berber language minority in Algeria and their struggle to have the language become official. Is this a similar situation?

HASNA: No, it's not the same. But the language is disappearing. Fewer and fewer speak it. In Béchar, they are almost gone.

Does the music help to keep the language alive?

HASNA: I sing in Soudania, gnawi. But there are almost none left who speak it. They speak Arab.

So when gnawa singers sing in Soudania, do they understand what they're singing?

HASNA: I don't know. It's mixed with Arabic words.

In gnawa tradition, music is for trance. It's the same with you.

HASNA: Yes, music is for trance. My father treated people.

So music and the guimbri is a kind of treatment.

HASNA: Yes, it's good. When you play the guimbri and sing gnawa, it brings you good health. When you dance in a trance, you come back a little better than before.

So when you sing and play, do you go into trance.

HASNA: Yes, sometimes. When I play the guimbri, I am not there. I am another person.

It's interesting to me that there are so many young people in your audience--18, 19. They're in France surrounded by hip-hop all these things, and here they are reconnecting to their culture.