Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Imal Gnawa is a local band led by Atlas Phoenix. They blend traditional Moroccan Gnawa music with modern technology and futurist ideas. They released their debut EP in January. We were thrilled they were able to join us for our April Get Lit with All Of It book club event with author Laila Lalami, who requested a contemporary Moroccan artist for the evening. You'll hear some of my conversation with the band's frontman, Atlas Phoenix, in a minute, but first, here's a live performance from Imal Gnawa.

Atlas Phoenix: Thank you, guys. We're going to share with you some Gnawa vibes. Gnawa is basically like ancient psychiatry. Before the modern psychiatry, people would gather up and they play these trance rhythms, but the way we do it is we're adding sci-fi elements, including the synthesizers. That's going to be led by Andrew Fox. Please give it up to Andrew. [applause] And a drum machine, that's Eilon Elikam. [applause] And we're doing the traditional part, Mustafa on Karkaba and vocals. [applause] And me on gimbri. So gimbri is this great-grandmother of bass, and I'll let you guys listen to it. [plays gimbri]

We're going perform Mimouna. We're going perform two songs. The first one is Mimouna. In Morocco, this tradition is shared by many communities, including Jewish community. Mimouna is a Moroccan Jewish female saint and and also a Jewish holiday.

[MUSIC - Imal Gnawa: Mimouna]

[applause]

Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Atlas, can I ask you a couple of questions before we hear your next song?

Atlas Phoenix: Sure, yes.

Alison Stewart: First of all, what is the name-- you said it's the grandfather of the bass. What is that called again?

Atlas Phoenix: Maybe grandmother. [laughter]

Alison Stewart: Grandmother, grandparent. What's it called again?

Atlas Phoenix: Gimbri.

Alison Stewart: A gimbri.

Atlas Phoenix: You can also call it hejhouj, sentir. It's where bass guitar evolved from. It's migrated from Sub-Saharan Africa to Morocco and it evolved in Morocco.

Alison Stewart: Before you sent over some of the music you were going to play for us tonight, you described it as having colors. Some of one piece was blue, another was black, another was green. First of all, what did we just hear? Blue, black, green, [crosstalk]?

Atlas Phoenix: This is blue.

Alison Stewart: This is blue. What does blue mean?

Atlas Phoenix: Actually, this is black [crosstalk].

Alison Stewart: This is black? Okay. What does black mean?

Atlas Phoenix: Gnawa music goes by spirits and colors, goes by colors, and each color is a collection of songs, and those songs, they represent ancient spirits. Maybe they were gods and goddesses back in the day, because this is 1000-year tradition and it was passed down orally, but they evolved, like Mimouna, for example, is an evolution itself of this spirit. Each color represents a bunch of spirits, and it's like a courtyard. People, they think they're possessed. That's how they interpreted their illnesses, And Gnawa is there to basically judge, basically like mediating, through trance, of course, between the dancer and spirits, basically.

Alison Stewart: You have this beautiful traditional music and then the guys back there on the electronics. How do you think about balancing the tradition and the technology? Because that's what a lot of what the book was about.

Atlas Phoenix: I think everything is connected and it's just about what fits. We studied it and we met and then we made this and we produced the first album and we have two more but different experiences because the first one was just solo with synthesizers, but the second one was with a group of vocalists, and the third one, we did it with a visitor, Maalam. He was visiting and we made that album. We're going to release it soon, hopefully.

Alison Stewart: So what are your plans for the future of the band?

Atlas Phoenix: Just to play music and enjoy music and experiment with it. We heal ourselves first and then anybody that vibrates with this vibe can also get the benefit.

Alison Stewart: What's the next song we're going to hear?

Atlas Phoenix: We're going to switch back to Muslim marabouts, and we have a song called Jilali Boualem. Jilali or Gilani - he's known in Arabic literature as Gilani - he's like-- not al-Hallaj, but he's similar to Hallaj, is this bohemian spiritual marabout migrated from modern-day Iraq, Baghdad, to North Africa and established a Muslim Sufi sect if you want, and that's it. And Moroccans, they sing songs about him, including Gnawa, so that's what we're going hear right now.

Alison Stewart: Here's Imal Gnawa.

Atlas Phoenix: Thank you.

[MUSIC - Imal Gnawa: Jilali Boualem]

Atlas Phoenix: Thank you guys. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: That was a live performance from the band Imal Gnawa from our April Get Lit with All Of It book club event. That is all of it for today. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. Have a great weekend, and I'll meet you back here on Monday.