Targ (2017)
9 tracks, 43 minutes
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The past few years have been a really exciting time for new directions in Tunisian music. I’ve already covered the ecstatic religious Afro-Tunisian industrial noise group Ifriqiyya Électrique and the pan-Maghreb bass music from Tunisian producer AMMAR 808, and today’s album is another one that is preserving one of the country’s little-known traditions by engaging it in a new way.
Bargou 08 was put together by Nidhal Yahyaoui, who grew up in Tunisia’s Bargou valley in the mountains of the country’s north-west. The people of the valley had created their own unique musical culture that had never gotten out into the rest of Tunisia, let alone abroad, but was starting to become lost. So, in the great tradition of the song collector, Yahyaoui began learning and recording the music from the valley, the music of all walks of life, to make sure a record of these traditions persisted. Then he decided to take it to the world, and for that, he brought in the help of Sofyann Ben Youssef – also known as the aforementioned AMMAR 808.
Together, they worked on arrangements of the folk pieces, bringing in musicians from the valley with those from outside it, they created a sound that is intensely of its place but cosmopolitan too. Ben Youssef’s synths and the drum kit of Benjamin Chaval put Targ undeniably within the 21st century and turn the tracks into banging floor-fillers, but they’re also somehow subtle; the architecture of these instruments working in complete complement with the traditional instruments of Bargou. The rasping gasbah flute and the astringent sound of the zokra shawm are paired with grinding sawtooth synths and the booming, distorted resonances of the bendir frame drum is enhanced with the pounding beats and cymbals of the drum kit and the fluid synth bass. The arrangements, too, make the best of both worlds, with the melodies and accompaniment entirely based on traditional songs, but still ramping up and occasionally dropping out in anticipation of a hearty bass drop, conducted by Yahyaoui’s passionate and subtle vocals, wrenching these beautiful songs from deep in his soul, gifted from his ancestors, while picking out lines on the wtar lute.
As far as I know, Bargou 08, as a project and a band, is on indefinite hiatus, but even if one album is all we get, Targ is an incredible achievement. It’s a shining example of how to keep traditional and endangered music alive without preserving it like a museum piece or patronising its musicians by keeping it chained to the past. Bargou 08 treat the music of the Bargou valley with the utmost respect while understanding its potential within the worlds of electronic and dance music, bringing these elements to the songs without taking any of the meaning or sound or energy away from their traditional forms. Nothing is destroyed, only built upon, and it’s magnificent. It’s a great album of cross-cultural collaboration done exactly right, and yet another brilliant, exciting and refreshing sound to come out of Tunisia in just the past handful of years. That country has so much to offer this world of music, and I can’t wait to hear what’s coming next.
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