Moulay On Monday

Its Monday. Its Moulay.

Moulay Ahmed El Hassani to be precise. He is a Moroccan musician who writes his own songs, plays all the instruments himself, records and self produces at his home studio. He has released more than 50 albums on cassette and CD over the past 30 years or so.

Moulay blends traditional Moroccan folk forms with rai and chaabi and then throws some synths and drum machines into the mix. The resulting sound, according to the blurb, "is like a twenty-first century folk music for a people caught somewhere between a vision of their own idealised pastoral past and a turbo charged, technologically driven urban future". So now you know.

In 2018 the Hive Mind label compiled a selection of his recordings from between 2005 and 2012 on an album called "Atlas Electric". I picked up a copy Bandcamp Friday just gone on a 'name your own price' offer and excellent value it has proved to be.

Here are a couple of tracks from the album. The first one is nearly 11 minutes long, the second seven and a half, so they double up as ritual offerings for one of the more enduring blog cults. Happy Monday Long Song to those who celebrate.

"Dnya Yakhlik" - Moulay Ahmed El Hassani

"Addabtini Mahantini" - Moulay Ahmed El Hassani

We have an unscheduled and unwanted Part 2 to today's post. The fine country crooner Johnny Rodriguez left us last Friday aged just 73. Here he is with two of his six #1 country hits. RIP Mr Rodriguez.