176: The Birth of Dar, by MoMo

MoMo (Morocco/United Kingdom)
The Birth of Dar (2001)
6 tracks, 41 minutes
I can’t find anywhere to stream or download this one online, unfortunately. However there are a few copies going for very cheap on discogs if this blog sufficiently piques your interest. I’d definitely recommend it…obviously.

Moroccan music has always seemed to me to have a bit of a darker edge to it than that of other Maghrebi countries. I don’t know what creates that feeling – it could be something as subtle as a unique tuning system, a small difference in timbre or a slightly lilted rhythm, but whatever it is, Moroccan music always seems particularly suited to a dark room of writhing bodies. It’s also one of the reasons that make its fusion with techno and other electronica work so well.

The name MoMo stands for ‘Music of Moroccan Origin,’ and that’s a great – and accurate – declaration of intent. The music of Morocco is their starting point, and after that, anything goes as they make their sound relevant to their UK-based context. That means elements of Berber music, Arab-Andalusian music and Morocco’s most famous Gnawa music, performed by the band-members and hacked up into samples, all provide grist for the mill for this album of psychedelic techno and breakbeat. Most satisfyingly, MoMo manage to maintain their source material’s dark edge and fold that into electronica carefully crafted to hold the same ever-so-slightly menacing vibe while still providing extremely dance-worthy rhythms. They pronounced this wonderful mix dar, or, as they described it succinctly on the album sleeve, ‘Dar Music is bloody foreigner music.’ The style as laid out on The Birth of Dar is a bold statement of (what was then) modern life: it’s uncompromisingly British and defiantly Moroccan, and neither gives way to the other, nor does it need to.

Calling this album The Birth of Dar gave a tantalising prospect of a new musical movement waiting to proliferate. But that never quite materialised. MoMo played gigs for a few years but then seemed to fade away into non-existence for the longest time. I had thought that MoMo as a project was completely dead, but it actually turns out they had some stirrings recently, and released an album last year with Jah Wobble, which you can hear on Spotify. Admittedly the only musician uniting these two albums is singer, percussionist and guimbri player Tahar el-Idrissi, but it’s still good that the spirit of MoMo continues in some form.

Although short-lived, the concept of dar still resonates as an important mindset and an ultra-cool, ultra-danceable and ever-so-slightly dark album in The Birth of Dar. It still has the power to resonate; hopefully the movement will get another chance at moving the world some point soon…or at least, that this album will be made easily listen-toable again.