(partly written on June 5th) -- I'm on the flight back to Milan. I spent the latest 24 hours in Joujouka for the first night of MMOJ festival organized as usual by Frank Rynne (
here the report of last year edition and a report from my days in Tangier - in italian).
I won't talk about MMOJ performance, it's been astonishingly hypnotic. I prefer to give a brief presentation of the people who were attending it, considering the long Joujouka pilgrimages history. Instead of going back again through the past I find more interesting to record in real time what's happening now.
I won't do any names and neither mention all of them of course, I'm only randomly listing people I met:
- a french guy, dj and gardener, we had awesome conversations about an indian island where he spend two/three months every year;
- an american ethnomusicologist who is spending a year in Tétouan (Morocco) to do a research on moroccan music for his PhD;
- an indian artist and performer - who's living in Providence, RI at the moment - also spending a couple of months in Morocco doing research for her work;
- a family from Belgium (dad with son and daughter); the father is a photographer and run a visual communication agency;
- the english group, composed by the friends I met already last year (about five or six people who came for the latest editions came back again this year) and other three/four guys, one of them in Morocco until the end of the month for the Gnoua festival in Essaouira;
- two guys from Greece for the third time in Joujouka, always pleasant discussions about politics, pornography and Venice Biennale (the topics weren't necessarly connected).
I also list people I remember from last year, I think about building a cartography of the people who went to Joujouka during the past forty years would be very interesting.
Anyway, here's last year team:
- a german journalist with his wife, we shared the same house and had awesome breakfasts together. He published the only encyclopedia available in german about reggae and jamaican music;
- a keyboard player (member of the fusion jazz band Spyro Gira) now teaching music in Upstate NY;
- an irish journalist and reporter (unfortunately I missed him this year, he arrived a couple of hours after I left the village). His voice is also featured on the tape I'm releasing, I've recorded him while he was telling a magic tale from one of his experiences in Congo;
- one of the founder of the UK band Loop, now engaged in solo projects related to musique concrete, with his girlfriend, also a musician.
About the rest of the trip, Fesmaatic finally couldn't make it, so I'll receive the tapes directly to Milan hopefully in the beginning of next week. After that I'll start to promote the release properly with an official release date and info sheet.
Big ups to Jace, Bo and the
Beyond Digital team. Find updates about their project in Casablanca on
BD website and on The Fader through their weekly post, find out the first
one here.
Looking forward to know how will the reaction be at Glastonbury Festival, this year The Master Musicians of Joujouka will open the Pyramid and play before U2, BB King, Wu Tang Clan and many more.
Here two pictures I took on friday night when Boujeloud came in.
