A Dream in Essaouira

Gnawa music is booming in popularity, and not before time. Created by sub-Saharan musicians living in the Maghreb, many of which are the descendants of slaves, its trancey pentatonic rhythms underpin the all-night healing rituals called lilas, and have fed collaborations from Randy Weston and Santana to London crossovers and Ibiza club mixes. But it is tagnawit – pure Gnawa, a conduit for ancestors, an exorciser of bad spirit/djinns – that Abdel Benaddi is presenting here. Recorded in a single evening with family members in the Moroccan Gnawa stronghold of Essaouira, it’s an undiluted sound that showcases the Gnawa music repertoire, with its Arabic-sung songs praising Allah and occasional words in West African Bambara. Here are call-and-response vocals, insistent hand drums, chattering metal qaraqab castanets and the deep, resonance of the gimbri bass lute, the instrument wielded by Gnawa maâlem/masters, leaders of the Gnawa brotherhoods. Spiritual music, then, in harmony with the elements, the city, the night.