A musical meeting between musicians from Morocco, France, Algeria and England. This is about the traditional music of the Gnawa brotherhood of Morocco.

Mogador is the ancient name given to Essaouira. This mythical town of south Morocco was compared to the Tombouctou harbour. That is why most of the Gnawa people are living in this town. The Gnawa people come from the Guinea empire (today Senegal, Guinea, Mali). In the 16th century, they have been deported in North Africa as slaves of rich sultans and integrated this new culture and religion into their own. Just like the Haitian voodoo or the Brazilian candomblé, they use to express themselves playing music, singing, dancing, and by rituals of possession which induce the trance.

At the origin of the group Mogador was the meeting between Ali (addicted to the Moroccan band Nass el Ghriwane) and Julian (strongly influenced by Hendrix) in a bus to Essaouira. In this town, they learned Gnawa music with Hassan a member of the Gnawa brotherhood. He introduces them to the traditional instrument of the Gnawa called sintir : three strings stretched over a camel skin that produces an infra-bass sound which leads the dancers into the trance.

Back to France, they create the group Mogador with Sihem and Yves. After a serie of gigs in the North of France, they start a collaboration with Peter and Ben from London to create a cross cultural music where the traditional music of the Gnawa meets jazz, groove and world music.

Julien Raout – Sintir, djembe, electric guitar, backing vocals
Abdul Mohamed – Lead vocals, qarqabu, sintir
Sihem Merad – Lead vocals, backing vocals
Peter Dry – Drums, keyboards, bass
Benoit Viellefon – Electric, acoustic & classical guitars, derbouka
Luc Viellefon – Soprano saxophone
Yves Leguilcher – Derbouka