Colours of the Night

This is the final studio recording by Maalem Mahmoud Gania, Moroccan guembri player and performer of Gnawa, the Islamic religious ritual poetry, music, and dancing. If your idea of “religious music” is slow and solemn, you might be in for a surprise: this is frantic, trance-inducing stuff, capable of whipping up even the non-believers among us into a mystic, all-night frenzy. A steady shaker and Gania’s guembri supply the rhythmic backbone to the chant-like, call and response vocals, unleashing Gnawa’s full hypnotic power.