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Sufi trance musicians and rituals -- from the depths of the Tunisian desert -- in conversation with post-industrial sonics. Ifriqiyya Electrique's François Cambuzat -- a guitarist and field recordist (Turkey, China, Central Asia) -- is a veteran of the Mediterranean punk and avant-rock scene, which has always been more politically charged than its counterparts to the north and (far) west. With bassist Gianna Greco, he is half of Putan Club (and one third when these two fierce and uncompromising players are joined by legend of the NY underground, Lydia Lunch). Ifriqiyya Electrique was formed in the Djerid desert in southern Tunisia. The Banga is a key annual event in the lives of the black communities of the oasis towns of southern Tunisia, descendants of the Hausa slaves transported from sub-Saharan Africa. It is a ritual of adorcism, not of exorcism; of accommodating the possessing spirit rather than expelling it. The invitation has been issued by the rûwâhîne themselves, the spirits from whom the record borrows its title, and is taken up primarily in the streets and in private houses. The Banga is a musical tradition, with stark, metallic, cavernous percussion, and voices of cool urgency, but should not be felt as such, for it is most defiantly a ritual and remains so on this recording. Cambuzat and Greco are joined in live performance by the voices, krakebs, and Tunisian tablas of three members of the Banga community, Tarek Sultan, Yahia Chouchen, and Youssef Ghazala, with a fourth, Ali Chouchen, providing vocals and nagharat on the recording itself. The voices and rhythms are unaltered, of course. What is new here is the conversation the group initiates between guitar, bass, and electronics and the rhythms and chants of the Banga -- what Cambuzat refers to a post-industrial ceremony. It won't be an easy listen for purists and propagandists; but if post-industrial ceremony doesn't describe a large portion of the most challenging music of the last 40 years, what does? In short, the music can only be fully understood in the context of the events that gave rise to it. Happily, Ifriqiyya Electrique is a film and documentary project as much as a band. The footage is astonishing: of wild, ecstatic gatherings that seem, to the un-initiates, by turns other-worldly and utterly familiar. It is familiar because of the need for "new ways of forgetting," in Cambuzat's words. But surely there is a need to remember too. For here is another deep tradition, another precarious music, on the brink: a vital part of a Sufi culture being pressed on all sides by the forces of reaction. Ifriqiyya Electrique will not be lamenting its passing -- because they will refuse to let it pass.
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