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// Driss el Maloumi 
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Morocco: The Dancing Soul
“Who has not dreamt, while strolling down city boulevards, of a world which, instead of beginning with words, would start with intentions?” These powerful and provocative words by the great French poet René Char introduce the latest album by gifted ‘oud player Driss el Maloumi. Accompanied by the restrained percussions (daf, bender and darbouka) of Lahoucine Baquir, he creates moving transitions from taqsim melodies to maqam ornamentations.
The song titles reflect this meditative approach. “Calmness” sets us on the way with its flowing evolution from traditional 4/4 beats to the pounding 6/8 rhythms of the Saba, Rast and Saba maqams. “The dancing soul” builds on a tense 5/4 beat of the Rast maqam, before flowing into an elegant and light phrasing that blends various maqamat. “Childhood” is flooded by memories that are served up with a dextrous and moving touch. And one the only song with vocals, “The moon”, is a wonderful pentatonic piece that is inspired by Maloumi’s Berber traditions.
This is indeed one of the gifts Maloumi possesses in abundance: an ability to ally the colours and texture of the Berber playing of the ‘oud with the more classic plucking of the great Oriental schools. The works here are bathed in nostalgia, yet there is no pathos, just a vitality and power perhaps best encapsulated in the long series of maqamat called “Resonance”. Here, the different maqams are linked with the smoothest of transitions that build up to a moving climax.
“Driss dreams of music forms that are off established routes,” explain Bérénice Gulmann and Sami Sadak in the exhaustive sleeve notes. “This is how one should listen to his music, as a mirror reflecting a thought in movement.” Recorded in Gulmann’s French Institute in Agadir, the CD has successfully trapped in its intertwining web the richness of Maloumi’s heritage, and his ability to stretch it durably into the present. It is a soothing album, beautifully recorded, that leaves the listener in a dreamy and pleasantly soporific state.
September 2005
Daniel Brown
(1 votes)
// ALSO
- Calcutta Slide Guitar 3
- In the Heart of the Moon
- La Kahena
- Latin Music USA: the Barbican and BBC Four go Latin
- The Interrupters
- Khaled, Liberté
- Joe Bataan & James Pants live at Cargo 11 June plus dates in Leeds and Birmingham
- The Music of Central Asia, Mongolian travel diary
- World Audio Foundation, Sacred sounds
// ALL DRISS EL MALOUMI'S REVIEWS
Morocco: The Dancing Soul
28/09/2005
// DISCOGRAPHY
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Morocco: The Dancing Soul (Album)// LINKS
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