The Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar evoke rituals in Dancing Under the Moon

This recording has been described elsewhere as a “debut” from a “Moroccan Sufi collective”. Not exactly. The Master Musicians are more dynastic family firm than a collective; this particular band were formed in the 1990s when a faction led by Bachir Attar split off from The Master Musicians of Joujouka led by Ahmed Attar (Attar is a surname adopted by group members).

Depending on which group one regards as the true keepers of the flame, their recording debut can be seen to have come much earlier. Perhaps in the mid-1950s, when Brion Gysin lugged a then-state-of-the-art Uher tape recorder up to their village in the foothills of Morocco’s Rif mountains. Certainly in 1968, when Brian Jones made another field recording — released in 1971, a couple of years after his death, as Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka. (Jones’s mistranscription sparked today’s nomenclatural battle between the rival groups.)

Bachir Attar’s musicians recorded Apocalypse Across the Sky for Bill Laswell 30 years ago, and have since worked with everyone from Ornette Coleman to The Rolling Stones. The roots of the music, according to Timothy Leary, date back four millennia. The old fraud was exaggerating, possibly by a factor of four; still, some “debut”.

Collaborations aside, the arc of recordings of the group (of both groups) has tended to the increasingly unadorned. Jones remixed his tapes heavily, editing a long recording down to highlights and then adding phasing and artificial echo. Paradoxically, although on the surface his disc does not sound like the music The Master Musicians play, it recreates the feeling of listening to them. Live, the combination of syncopation and ever-shifting polyrhythms propels audiences into a trance-like state, even in a concert hall with no chance of an appearance by the goat-god Bou Jeloud — or even the dancer playing him who puts in an appearance when the Musicians play in their home village.

This new recording by the Italian producer Jacopo Andreini was made at the end of 2019. It stands up well next to Apocalypse Across the Sky (which is the best of the post-Jones albums). Its two discs contain a wider selection than usual of the music. There are ritual dances, led by the high wails of twin rhaitas (double-reeded wooden flutes) and tripping, edgy percussion. There is court music, of the sort once used to accompany the Sultan to the mosque, the rhaita here mimicking a call to prayer: “Khamsa Khamsin”, hacked down by Jones to under a minute, here runs to nearly eight. And the quieter Al-Andalusian meditations of “L’Ayta” offer the perfect comedown.

★★★★☆

‘Dancing Under the Moon’ is released by Glitterbeat