Essaouira Echoes: Julian Belbachir’s cross-continental project unites Australian and Moroccan musicians

An innovative multicultural fusion project recently took place in Morocco, combining a core band of Australian artists with a group of young Moroccan Gnawa musicians based in Essaouira. Several years in the making, this unique collaboration was the brainchild of Australian-born multi-instrumentalist and producer Julian Belbachir.

The son of a Moroccan father and an Australian mother, Belbachir was first known musically as the drummer with Aussie electro-didgeridoo (yidaki) band OKA. When the group’s Indigenous founder-frontman Stu Fergie died in early 2022, Julian began concentrating on his own music, focusing on the multi-stringed Malian ngoni, which he had studied on previous trips to Africa.

This led to his adventurous 2022 debut album Babdoukkala (a Top of the World in SL179), in which Belbachir assembled a select group of Australian-based African musicians. Warmly produced and mixed by Belbachir and Australian audio engineer-musician Alex Richardson, Babdoukkala introduced Julian’s music to a global audience and laid the groundwork for several live Australian performances, including an acclaimed set at WOMADelaide 2023.

Since then, Belbachir has increasingly been based in the Atlantic seaside town of Essaouira in Morocco, where he has established solid links with the city’s Gnawa musicians. Central to those friendships is 30-year-old Moroccan gimbri player-singer Abdel Benaddi – the son of a well-known local Gnawa master. Belbachir produced Benaddi’s excellent 2024 debut album A Dream in Essaouira. One of the most important hereditary Gnawa musicians of his generation, Benaddi is also director of Essaouira’s Zaouia Sinda Bilal (Ceremonial House of Gnawa), responsible for organising community gatherings and ceremonies.

Wishing to combine his Australian and Moroccan colleagues in a cross-cultural project, Belbachir applied for Australian funding to make it happen, and last November, members of his Sydney-based band made the journey to Essaouira. “It was an incredible sequence of events, which involved so many incredible musicians”, recalls Julian. “I’d been thinking about doing it for many years because the vision for me was always to blend the sounds that we’d been creating, performing and recording in Australia with the music that I’ve been making off and on here in Morocco over the last four years. It was about joining those two worlds, to eat at the same table, to record a new album and to tour this country.”

The travelling Sydney contingent was anchored by 75-year-old Malian guitarist Moussa Diakité, who first came to Australia as part of Salif Keita’s band in 1993. Diakité’s playing has always displayed a strong jazz influence, and before joining Salif in 1990, he was a member of Bamako’s famous Super Rail Band (1979–1983) and Toumani Diabaté’s live group (1983–1987). Moussa still regularly returns to Mali, and besides performing with Belbachir, fronts his own Sydney-based band.

Also joining Belbachir’s Essaouira gathering were Aussie-based musos Dave Rodriguez on guitar and production, violinist-singer Quetzal Guerrero, percussionist Domenic Kirk, audio maestro Richardson, Julian’s DJ-photographer brother Ben Belbachir, filmmaker-administrator Anna Cater and myself. The Moroccan team was anchored by Abdel Benaddi and augmented with Gnawa vocals, percussion and dancing by locals Amin El Allouki and Abdel’s younger brother Ismail Benaddi.

Hanging in the relaxed vibe of Essaouira’s colourful labyrinth-like medina for the first weeks, the assembled musos jammed each day – either in their shared riad guesthouse or in the nearby Dar Souiri cultural centre – getting to know each other’s styles and developing a sometimes-gentle, often-spirited repertoire. Their musical conversation quickly became a fascinating fusion, led by elegant ngoni melodies, deep gimbri basslines and Gnawa percussion, intertwined with Malian jazz and ambient-electronic guitar lines, soaring violin solos and traditional-sounding Moroccan vocals.

As for his own ngoni playing, Julian is reflective. “I think I’ll always be a drummer, and I’ve been invested in rhythm for a long time, but as I grow as a musician, melody and harmony have touched me in a special way. Playing the ngoni has allowed me to explore and develop my musical identity, and blending it with the Gnawa sound of Abdel’s gimbri, it’s almost like they’re ancient cousins.”

Belbachir has also managed to establish some influential advocates in Morocco with the King’s Essaouira-born chief advisor André Azoulay, city mayor Tarik Ottmani and local group Association Essaouira-Mogador all lending their valuable support. “I think we’ve had a very tangible success with the music that’s been created here, and since I’ve been investing a lot of time and energy into this place, people notice, and they see both the intention and the collaborative results,” Belbachir explains. “And to have the support of the Moroccan kingdom and the local town government is amazing and very fortunate.”

“To bring guests over here from Australia, while we may come from different worlds, it’s the music that brings us together”, he says. “We may not speak the same language or understand all of each other’s customs, but when we gather to make music, we know exactly who we are. And that’s the success of this project.”

Following rehearsals, the newly expanded Gnawa-Australian ensemble spent a week recording an album’s worth of new material. And while the results of those Essaouira recording sessions most likely won’t be released until 2026, Belbachir already has his second album – titled The Golden Light – ready for release later this year.

After a debut performance from the new live band in Essaouira, the entourage headed to Morocco’s majestic capital Rabat to take part in the annual Visa For Music gathering – a four-day festival-conference showcasing music from around the world. Organised by veteran Moroccan festival director Brahim El Mazned, some of 2024’s strongest performances came from Cameroonian-French songstress Valérie Ékoumé, Finland-Benin’s Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble and Italian jazz saxophonist Enzo Favata’s group The Crossing. Belbachir’s band headlined the main stage on the Friday night, performing an inspired, beautifully staged set and winning over the audience with a powerful combination of style, subtlety and musical chops.

On the final night of the festival, the eight-piece Aussie-Maroc band were invited to perform an additional intimate set at the Australian Embassy for a guestlist of international diplomats and Rabat-based cultural powerbrokers. The casual outdoor gathering underlined the unusual musical inroads that Julian’s multicultural project has quickly established.

Leaving the urban reality behind, Belbachir’s roadshow proceeded across the rugged Atlas Mountains to its final destination: the oasis town of M’hamid El Ghizlane, a gateway to the mighty Sahara Desert, situated close to the Moroccan-Algerian border. It’s the home of the Zamane Festival, a local community-based gathering headed by Joudour Sahara director Halim Sbai. Highlighting the mixed cultural nature of the region and the importance of ever-encroaching environmental issues, the three-day Zamane programme was supported by the US-based Playing For Change Foundation, and featured traditional and contemporary music and dance from local, regional and international performers. Playing to a blue-turbaned Berber-Touareg audience and bolstered by crowds of partying local youth, Belbachir’s Gnawa-fuelled ensemble headlined the Saturday night with an intricate and playful set, while Niger guitarist Bombino closed out Sunday by delivering a swirling blast of his trademark electric Saharan rock-blues.

A couple of days later, after five weeks together, Julian’s creative cross-cultural group finally dispersed in several directions…. with some folks heading off to Casablanca and Marrakech to catch flights to Cuba, Sri Lanka, Mali and Australia, and some simply returning home to Essaouira. “There’s no doubt that this project will continue to evolve further in the near future,” states Julian enthusiastically, “We’ll soon be ready for Round Two… Inshallah.”