A Limited Release for Lebanon
- marc5228
- Apr 6
- 1 min read
Maalem Abdelrazak El Moustakim - Dar Gnaoua
Here’s another in our series of limited digital only releases from the Hive Mind Cassette Archive.
This is a rare cassette from Rabat based Gnaoua Maalem (or master), Abdelrazak El Moustakim. Best guess is that it was released in the late 2000’s or early 2010’s. I’ve been a unable to find much of anything online about this Gnaoua musician other than a handful of live videos on YouTube all from this period, and nothing after around 2015. He played at the annual Gnaoua Festival in Essaouira around this time. I therefore have no idea if he’s still alive let alone still playing.
This tape however, deserves to be heard. I think it may be a recording from a lila or a live performance. It certainly has a live feel to it and the qraqebs are nice and loud in the mix. There are some wonderful, unhurried performances, and I particularly love the backing vocals across the performance. You really get a sense of the ecstasy of it all:
As always this is a Pay What You Like release on Bandcamp and any money you donate will go to the Tunefork Studios fundraiser for the thousands of families who’ve been displaced by Israel’s illegal campaign of military aggression against the people of Lebanon.
You can find more info about the fundraiser, and buy one of their excellent compilations of contemporary Lebanese music, here:
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