Music of Morocco: Recorded by Paul Bowles, 1959

This four-disc set of Paul Bowles’ recordings in Morocco in 1959 reproduces – with eight additional pieces – the original 1972 Library of Congress double-LP set. Drawn from 250 recordings from 22 locations over 140 days of travel, and encompassing music from the Rif through the Middle and High Atlas to Marrakech and Essaouira, this music has long been cloistered in the vaults of the Library of Congress, the original album a collectors’ item. This new edition has been put together by Philip Schuyler, whose essay and annotations accompany Bowles’ own field notes.

The music itself follows Bowles’ original schema, but what were originally excerpts are restored to their full length, mostly clocking in at around ten to 15 minutes. Bowles was entranced by the hypnotic quality of Morocco's music, and that quality suffuses the set like a cloud of kif smoke. The first disc takes us into the Atlas, through Tiznit, Tafraout, Tahala and Zagora, with Berber performances, focused on vocal ensembles and complex layers of percussion. Disc two opens with the mesmerising flutes of the Anouada Trio, whose music Bowles posited as the root of English Morris (‘highly speculative,’ notes Schuyler). There's a stunning qsbah (flute) solo and some astonishing female voices – most noticeably that of Cheikha Haddouj bent Fatma Rohou on ‘Qim Rhori’. This alone is worth the price – two groups of three women with their voices on fire, repeating the same vocal phrase over and over and over to an improvised and dexterous gimbri, fusing Arabic and Berber forms in a hybrid that Bowles found displeasing but which is sheer musical heaven – these women could flatten every big-time R&B diva against the wall. And then flatten the wall too.

Bowles also disliked the sersal sound modifier once habitually attached to the gimbri by solo Gnawa players, its strange, otherworldly hum conjuring a whole orchestra of sound and rhythms that presage Western jazz, blues, soul and rock’n’roll.

The final disc includes two remarkable recordings of secular Sephardic song from Meknes and Essaouira and three extended ensembles from Andaluz. The disc closes with an early morning call to prayer in Tangier.

This box set is a thing of great beauty and depth, in both conception and execution. For anyone with ears turned to the music and culture of North Africa, this is an essential purchase.