Sound Trip: Morocco Journey to Joujouka to air on NHK in Japan

Sound Trip: Morocco Journey to Joujouka airs on 3rd January in NHK in Japan

First screening of 90 minute documentary to be shown on 3 January.

The Master Musicians of Joujouka are delighted to announce the first showing of a 90 minute documentary.

Sound Trip: Morocco Journey to Joujouka airs on NHK BS Premium and NHK BS 4K in Japan on Tuesday, 3 January at 22.30.

The documentary, directed by Yoriko Koizumi, features a fully immersive 360° sound and vision.

Shot over three weeks in October 2022 the documentary starts in Tangier and features footage from two weeks of shooting within Joujouka. 

The show is an immersive audio documentary

We will update when the show will be broadcast in other territories. 

Watch a preview trailer for the series here

A statement from NHK said: “A new travel program with immersive audio. Visit Morocco in North Africa to hear the legendary music of Joujouka. You can enjoy a more immersive feeling with headphones.

“A new travel program using the audio playback technology ‘Immersive Audio’. Viewers are surrounded by 360° stereophonic sound. Visit Morocco in North Africa. Travel to the exotic port city of Tangier and the magical ritual festival of Joujouka, an unexplored village that Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones admired. Morocco, where music is linked to religion, is still alive today. What kind of prayers can people put into music?”

Read more via NHK

The Master Musicians of Joujouka annual Festival returns in 2023 with a limited number of 50 places – tickets available now.

The festival begins on Friday, 2nd June 2023 with pick up at the nearest city of Ksar El Kebir around noon and by arrangement drop-off on the morning of Monday, 5th June back to the train station at Ksar El Kebir.

More information about Joujouka 23 

To book your tickets for Joujouka 23 click below

Joujouka 23



 

Photo report from Master Musicians of Joujouka festival 3-5 June 2022

The ritual of Boujeloud – the half man / half goat dancing in front of flames on the closing night of the Master Musicians of Joujouka festival

The Master Musicians of Joujouka welcomed guests to their village home in the Ahl Serif mountains of Morocco earlier this year for three days over 3-5 June.

Over the course of the weekend the Mallimin performed their ancient Sufi trance to an audience of guests who had travelled from all over the world to join them.

Booking open now for Joujouka 23 2-4 June 2023

The Master Musicians of Joujouka annual Festival returns in 2023 with a limited number of 50 places – tickets available now.

The festival begins on Friday, 2nd June 2023 with pick up at the nearest city of Ksar El Kebir around noon and by arrangement drop-off on the morning of Monday, 5th June back to the train station at Ksar El Kebir.

More information about Joujouka 23 

For tickets see link below

Booking now open for the festival in Joujouka for 2023 – tickets make a great Christmas present. Ad as featured in the January 2023 edition of Wire magazine out now.
Relaxing in the afternoon at the Madrassa tent
Dancing during an evening set by the Master Musicians of Joujouka
In the village square in front of the tomb of Sidi Ahmed Shiekh
An afternoon performance on the tent stage, with Shiekh Ahmed Talha on kemanja (violin)
The tebel section led by Ahmed El Attar
Up close with Mohamed El Attar
Guests dance to the sounds of ancient trance music
Rhaitas
Boujeloud taunts the surrounding crowd with his olive branch switches
Ali Ezouglali playing lira in the kitchen at the Madrassa
Rhaitas led by El Touhami Talha
Heavy drones
Making bread in Joujouka
Boujeloud dances onstage
Young Joujouki hit the dancefloor
Mohamed El Hatmi, aka Boujeloud, after his performance
Crowd scene by the tent stage in the evening
A bedroom in one of the homes at Joujouka
Donkeys on the path
Get your motor running – the Mallimin provide a push for a hill start to help a biker guest get back on the road
The village school bus at the gate of the Madrassa
The Master Musicians of Joujouka greet guests at the festival in their village
The embers of the flames after Boujeloud lit up the jibal

Read more about the Festival

For more info email joujouka@gmail.com

To book your tickets for Joujouka 23 click below


Joujouka 23



 

Photos in this gallery taken on the third and final day of the festival by Richie Troughton

Master Musicians of Joujouka films feature in Arab Media Lab film programme

The Tangier Interzone Edition 2 film festival starts from 22nd November 2022.

The Master Musicians of Joujouka are set to feature in two films scheduled for the Arab Media Lab film festival starting later this month.

The film programme, curated by Abdelaziz Taleb and produced by The Arab Media Lab project, features rare opportunities to view two films featuring the Master Musicians of Joujouka – Destroy All Rational Thoughtand Joujouka.

Tangier Interzone Edition 2 is set to take place from 22nd November to 19th December 2022 with screenings in Marrakesh and online.

Watch a trailer for Tangier Interzone 2 here

The Arab Media Lab featured films celebrate the many artists, poets and intellectuals, including members of the Beat Generation, who visited Tangier to be inspired and “live the Moroccan dream”.

Festival organisers said: “Few lived a human dialogue with the locals, but most of them wanted to experience other things in order to expand the language of experience beyond the practical world.

“Via our film program: Tangier Interzone 2, we will try to explore this frontier between reality and fiction, and  discuss  the imaginary dimension of this same “reality”. This year we expand our program to works and artists who does not only have a direct link with the movement, but were inspired by it and lived the experience from within.”

Destroy All Rational Thought

Screening 29th November at 20.00 (Moroccan time) here

Frank Rynne, Terry Wilson, Joe Ambrose and Stuart McLean

Ireland, US, Morocco | 1994 | 50min  

The great Beat Generation experiments took place in Tangier, the Moroccan city where William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and the Moroccan painter Mohamed Hamri taught Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, and Allen Ginsberg how to live outside the law. 

This film features one of the last interviews with Burroughs and previously unseen vintage footage of him in his prime during the 50s and early 60s.

Frank Rynne, Manager of the Master Musicians of Joujouka, said: “Destroy All Rational Thought documents the 1992 Here to Go Show which was held in Dublin, Ireland. The Here to Go Show derived its name from the book Here to Go where Brion Gysin spoke about his life and art with his friend and collaborator Terry Wilson. The show was an attempt to revitalise interest in  Brion Gysin’s art and life six years after his death in Paris in 1986. The was the first major art exhibition featuring William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin’s paintings as well as those of their friend Mohamed Hamri, the Moroccan painter who introduced the Beats and Rolling Stone Brian Jones to his village and their musicians the legendary Master Musicians of Joujouka. It also featured a photograph exhibition by Ira Cohen and multiple live events. It was one of the last counterculture moments before the arrival of the internet.

“Gordon Campbell a long-time devotee of Gysin provided the funding and logistics for the show and the organisers, Rynne, Wilson and Ambrose cast their net out to ensure the collaboration and participation through various means of fans and friends of Gysin including Wiliam S. Burroughs, Iggy Pop, Bill Laswell, Felicity Mason, Ramuntcho Matta, Mohamed Hamri, Ira Cohen and more. A highlight of the show was the appearance of a small troupe of Master Musicians of Joujouka to whom Gysin had devoted much of his life, promoting and encouraging luminaries to visit.

Destroy All Rational Thought documents various events at the Here to Go Show as well as including artistic performances by the participants and also uses then unseen rare archival footage shot by filmmaker Antony Balch of Burroughs, Gysin and others in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of this footage was reworked into Balch’s The Cut Ups and Towers Open Fire. The Dublin events were shot on lo-fi video and added to this are an array of artworks, images, spoken word and music from Material, The Baby Snakes, Master Musicians of Joujouka including a performance in collaboration with Irish artists such as Daniel Figgis and a live performance with The Baby Snakes featuring Thin Lizzy drummer Brian Downey.

Destroy All Rational Thought also features extracts from one of the last interviews with William S. Burroughs conducted in Lawrence, Kansas by Corinna MacNeice, which was recorded as an introduction to the show and featured at the opening reception. In it Burroughs’ states that ‘Brion Gysin was the only man I ever respected’.”

Joujouka

Screening 3rd December 20.30 (Moroccan time) here

Frank Rynne and Marek Pytel

Ireland, UK | 1998 | 23min  

Joujouka is a short film shot on Super 8 in Morocco in 1995 and 1996. Having brought the Master Musicians of Joujouka to Ireland for the 1992 Here to Go Show featuring William Burroughs and Brion Gysin artworks Rynne went to Morocco in 1994 to record the Master Musicians of Joujouka and ended up in Marrakesh also where he recorded the Gnoua troupe led by Mallim Hassan L’Gadiri. 

Resulting in the CDs Joujouka Black Eyes by Master Musicians of Joujouka (Sub Rosa 1995) and Sufi; Moroccan Trance featuring Gnoua Brotherhood of Marrakesh and Master Musicians of Joujouka (Sub Rosa 1996).

This short evocatively follows the path of the Beats and Brian Jones from Tangier to Joujouka and on to Marrakesh relying on music and repetition to evoke the spirit of Sufi trance in the Morocco of the mid-1990s. 

In Joujouka, Mohamed Hamri, the self-styled, Painter of Morooco, adds his presence.

The film was shown at many counterculture events in the 1990s including at the ICA and the Horse Hospital in London and at performance by Master Musicians of Joujouka and the rai hop art group Islamic Diggers. 

For more information about Arab Media Lab film festival click here

The Master Musicians of Joujouka festival Joujouka 23 takes places 2-4 June 2023. For more information and to book your tickets click here

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