The Eleven Best Music Makes Me Posts of 2009

8 months. 100 posts.

Modest, I know, but this is a purely subjective selection of posts from this site in the 8 months it's been going.

It's a bit like those 'The Best of the News' things they do on local TV around this time of year: pointless (but somehow compelling?)

Recordings and Found Sounds of Marrakesh (Moroccan Holiday Part III)

This is the third instalment of pictures and sounds from Morocco.

(See Part I here, and Part II here.)

Let's start with some traffic recorded on the way to the centre:

Traffic in Marrakech

Moroccan Music (A Holiday in Morocco - Part II)

Marrakech Special Festival

An album offered to me by a man who also tried to interest me in some "shit".

He was a very louche character, but his stall just on the outskirts of the souks made up for it with a good record collection and a big pile of sunglasses and transistor radios.

Usually musical mementoes of a place are a regrettable idea, but this album really does capture the spirit of the Jemaa el Fna (a huge square in the centre of Marrakech that at night becomes an orgy of dance, spectacle and hypnotic African and Arabic rhythms).

Appel et ahouach d'imintanout

Guedra chenguit

Flute karaouyne

Fouaras et ehaouas

Tambours de marrakech

Come back later this month for some found sounds and field recordings from the Jemaa el Fna and elsewhere in Morocco.

Moroccan 45s (A Holiday in Morocco - Part I)

A soulful singer, accompanied in the sparse Moroccan fashion. Latifa (or Latifah) is still performing today.

Latifa Amale (Koutoubiaphone)



Here's another 45 with perhaps sparser instrumenation. Can anyone tell me the name of the record? I know the artist is Sahib ben Maati and that the label was held together with sellotape. (Incidentally, how do records survive out there, in that hot sun?)

Sahib ben Maati - Side One
Sahib ben Maati - Side Two



Finally, a comic duo. Are there any Arabic speakers who are able to give me the gist of this one?

Souris et Belkass

MMM’s Most Popular Posts

	The Best of The Alternate Beatles To those who thought the Beatles couldn't be covered, I am offering a sampler of tracks - one representing each album - in the hope that it might win you over to the virtues of this downloadable 15-album collection of cover versions! From Sandie Shaw to Lord Sitar, from Ruben Blades to Swan Arcade, this CD-length collection hints at the wonderful range of covers available on each album.
	The Obscenity of Jelly Roll Morton Jelly Roll Morton's 'Make Me A Pallet on Your Floor' is a 13-minute phantasmagoric blues prefiguring the sexual fantasies of Gangsta rap. Morton's famous bravado is here at its most untrammelled. Morton esteems his own prowess, issues commands, threats, and swears. A lot.
	A 78s Playlist (The Nine Best 78s on Music Makes Me) I've got a present for you. It's a 45-minute playlist to introduce you to the 78s available on the site.
	Short Story Generator Just thought I'd share a short story idea generator I created in an idle moment that could well be useful for teaching creative writing to high school or college students.
	Persian Rug - Unusual Patterns in Jazz 1928-1934 There's no better find than an early jazz exotica find! Although some of the tracks, including the Teagarden, are hardly that 'unusual', there is a lot of intriguing instrumentation and rhythmic patterning here.
	The Young Irving Berlin - Volume I - The Brits The most astonishing thing about the songwriting career of Irving Berlin is its consistency. You listen to the songs on Annie Get Your Gun, and it seems unbelievable that Berlin wrote them towards the end of his career as a songwriter: there's no tapering off; every melody and lyric is right on the button.
	P Vert's Stickball in Stereo A crescendo of inane profanity that has the cathartic qualities of Picasso's Guernica.
	Talbot O'Farrell Five songs from the mellifluous tenor.
	Moroccan Holiday  A few audio clips and photographs from our trip to Morocco.
	My Other Site is a Different Sort of Thing Altogether This is a tawdry plug for my other site, where I'm dripfeeding recordings I've made. It's a mixture of mashups/electronic music and things I've recorded with friends.