Moroccan Gnawa for the World: A Musical Album of Lyric Melodies and Magical Mysteries

    BRISTOL, TN, April 19, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Kamal Bouskri is a multi-generational owner/manager of an award-winning Boutique Hotel, Riad Kniza, in the Ancient City of Marrakech. His love for all things African has brought the Gnawa to an album, and has helped him to structure what many hope will be the first musical Album of many more to come centered around the sounds of his native northern Africa.

Not since Paul Simon invested himself in African beats and melodies with his Graceland offering in 1986 has such a work of native African music been presented for the entire world to absorb and enjoy.

While travelers to Marrakesh openly speak about the hauntingly real melodies pervading their consciousness days and even weeks after their visit and their first exposure to Gnawa music--Gnawa must still find both its heart and true following within the soul of the world's great music lovers.

Perhaps this album offers the world its first serious look at Gnawa music along with its magical and healing powers.

Gnawa--heard in Morocco and other North African locales--evokes a mixture of African, Berber, and Arabic songs and rhythms. It's that amazing Saharan hypnotic trance music that travelers to North Africa come to associate with all things different, all things unique to the area.

In reality, Gnawa music is both a prayer and a celebration of life. Gnawas, the musicians themselves, are considered to be experts in, among other things, the treatment of scorpion stings and psychic disorders.

Says Bouskri, "I've loved this music all my life. It evokes the charm of native folk music in the mountains of South America and the high mountains of Nepal--and can even be associated in soulful strains with the mountain music of American Appalachia. It's a music that soothes the soul and placates the mind."

Gnawa music is said to use its deeply low-toned harmonics to hypnotize the listener. Those same low-toned cadences bring native dancing to the fore, dancing designed to evoke ancestral saints who can drive out evil spirits.

The Bouskri compilation brings true color to the music of the area and allows the listener to closely understand the strength and beauty of this uniquely original presentation.

Gnawa Music Morocco is available for U$D 9.99 in Album format at Apple I Tunes at http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gnawa-music-morocco/id431706347.

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