Bachir Attar trance and dub step

The British Asian percussionist Talvin Singh produced an album by the Master Musicians of Jajouka (featuring Bachir Attar) in 2000. His production credits include, ominously, "atmospheres". In the album opener Up to the Sky, Down to the Earth, Singh places Attar's horn in the reverb-drenched distance, then doubles it on keyboard, further muffling its original sound. Decisions like these make bare Singh's distaste for the band's trademark ghaita flutes, and his drum'n'bass breakbeats are as ham-fisted as Jajouka's shifting polyrhythmns are subtle. Working with Attar in his London studio, Singh dated timeless music by fusing it to club techniques that sound old-fashioned less than 10 years later. Ancient Sufi traditions are not necessarily enhanced by atmospheric synthesizer washes. Jace Clayton National http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/music/past-masters

You can see  and Bachir Attar's latest attempts at crossover into  dubstep here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr6gPlTm9dk

It defies logic that this is promoted as the voice of the authentic Sufi trance of the Ahl Srif.





BS ~ One thing that struck me about Jajouka Rolling Stone was that you are fulsome in your praise of Apocalypse Across the Sky, but you do not credit Bill Laswell for producing an album that sonically stands head and shoulders above Brian Jones’ Jajouka recording. Was the omission of Laswell’s name an oversight, or was there another reason?

SD ~ Laswell/Shmazwel. It is true that Apocalypse sounds great, but the quality of the music is only … ok. The band that recorded this music in Jajouka was cobbled together by Bashir (Bachir) Attar, with a couple of his brothers, and – I was told – some outside wedding musicians from Ksar el Kebir, the nearest big town. Bashir did it for the money, which was good.

http://www.overgrownpath.com/2011/05/who-are-real-master-musicians.html