Jedba: Spiritual Music from Morocco

Musician/producers Abdesselam Damoussi and Nour Eddine have recorded and accompanied musicians from various parts of Morocco in this captivating album, crafted in Eddine’s 15th-century home-turned-studio in Marrakech. Some tracks work around found elements—an impromptu jam session in the Marrakech madinah, an old beggar’s prayer, a chance encounter with a local imam. Others are more deliberate, such as Yemdeh Selem’s electrifying vocal from the Moroccan Sahara, accompanied by blazing electric guitar in a richly altered tuning. Still others feature fluttering ilala flutes, keening double-reed gaitas, the Berber rebab and rolling, tripping frame-drum rhythms and voices that soar, chant and ululate, forming and informing this mesmerizing collection.