Berber music

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

>From WWW.ROOTSWORLD.COM

Moh Alileche Tragedy (Tawaghit) Flag of Freedom Productions
(www.flagoffreedom.com)

Moh (Mohammed) Alileche performs the traditional music of Kabylia,
Algeria's primary Berber (Amazigh) region. Born in 1949, Alileche has been
performing music for years, but Tragedy is his first recording. He had
gained a great deal of local and some national recognition in Algeria, but
emigrated to California in 1990, the year before the outbreak of Algeria's
devastating civil war. Since then Alileche has slowly made a name for
himself by performing at world music venues in California and his
visibility has increased with this CD release.

Tragedy consists of numbers penned by Alileche, who sings and plays the
mondol or mandola, a ten-stringed instrument that is something like a large
mandolin, and is favored by singers of the Algerian chaabi genre. A
heterogeneous group backs him here, including North African musicians based
in the Bay Area and non -Algerian Californians devoted to Middle Eastern
music. The ensemble results are surprisingly pleasing, with Omar Ait Vimoun
on banjo and Mimi Spencer on qanun standing out in particular. Alileche
himself is truly outstanding, delivering spirited vocals and mondol
playing, and it is hard to imagine that the music we hear was produced in
San Francisco and not Tizi-Ouzou.

The title track of Tragedy is dedicated to Matoub Lounes, the talented and
militant Kabylie musician assassinated in Algeria in 1998. Throughout this
year, tens of thousands of Algerian Berbers have been demonstrating, in
Kabylia and in Algiers, for official recognition of their language
(Amazigh) and an end to official repression. Frequently, the protesters
carry aloft posters of their fallen cultural/political hero, Matoub Lounes.
"Tragedy" is a long, beautiful, and poignant tribute to Lounes. And the
entire album, whether it deals with overtly political matters, love affairs
or traditional weddings, represents Alileche's own militant, artful
contribution to the struggle for recognition of the Amazigh language and
culture.

- Ted Swedenburg

Listen to "Day of Happiness"
http://www.rootsworld.com/audio/alileche.ram

Available from cdRoots: orders@xxxxxxxxxxx Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004SSWR /rootsworldmagazi/



Louis Proyect
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