Ifriqiyya Electrique

Ifriqiyya Electrique performing at Le Kef Festival in Tunisia.
Image: Hurricane Lily. CC BY-SA 4.0. Source.

Summary

Ifriqiyya Electrique is a collective developed in Tunisia's Djerid region through engagement with the Banga ritual tradition. Voices and hand percussion meet electric instruments and electronic sound.

History

Gianna Greco and François R. Cambuzat's extended work with Banga communities developed from research and recording into shared performance. Rûwâhîne appeared in 2017, followed by Laylet el Booree. International touring brought the resulting collective into concert settings.

Music and repertoire

The music brings ritual invocations and metallic percussion into contact with high-volume electronics and the underground post-punk backgrounds of Greco and Cambuzat. Its influences therefore include a specific Tunisian communal practice and European experimental performance. The record label describes the collaboration as growing through participation in local ritual rather than assembling isolated samples for an outside audience. Concert presentation is one setting for that work; it does not stand for every form or social purpose of Banga.

Selected recordings in MuGlobe:

• Ifriqiyya Electrique - Nafta Naghara — Banga.
• IFRIQIYYA ELECTRIQUE - Eh He Lalla - Laylet el Booree - Glitterbeat Records — Banga.
• Ifriqiyya Electrique - Galoo Sahara Laleet El Aeed (Hidden Track) — Banga.

Members and collaborators

The five-person recording and touring collective documented for these albums joined Tarek Sultan, Yahia Chouchen and Youssef Ghazala with Greco and Cambuzat. Those credits keep the Tunisian participants visible within a project sometimes described only through its electric production.