Trance

It may sound cheesy, but you should probably close your eyes for this. The songs on "Trance" by Kwaku Baah & Ganoua (Morocco, 1977) are made of a delicate string of loops around which other instruments constantly shift and stray, yet ultimately return to in the end. In Morocco, Trance music is traditionally used to drive out evil spirits and vanquish the presence of those who are deceitful or disingenuous -- it's no wonder, then, that listening to this music is a purging experience in which you forget time and place, and come out on the other side dazed and a little melancholy.


(Taken from the record cover.)

This is a kind of magic that we could really translate into what we are doing -- here, now. A ritual meant to lift the unspoken veil of lies that separates us from truly communicating with one another. What we are unable to articulate in words, we attempt to communicate by making. Though it may at times feel futile, its purpose is to uncover what is otherwise left unsaid. In a short essay on Jajouka, William S. Burroughs gets at the core of it -- "In Morocco musicians are magicians....the origin of all arts -- music, painting, and writing -- is magical and evocative, and that magic is always used to obtain some definite result."



Kwaku Baah & Ganoua - Riff Zef Zef
Kwaku Baah & Ganoua - Dervish Jowi

More information and full album can be found here.