Trance, ritual, mysticism, psychedelia, magic...however one chooses to describe the way that gnawa music affects people, there can be no denying the fascination for it which reaches right across the world. And Majid Bekkas, one of the most dazzling exponents of modern gnawa is also probably the musician who has managed to find the most varied and interesting ways to make this music interact with other genres. Now, with Magic Spirit Quartet, he has had taken the boldly imaginative step of building a bridge to connect North Africa and Scandinavia, to align the ancestral with the ambient. It is an inspired move which seems to catch the very spirit of 21st century jazz.The origins of gnawa have never been fully explained, and that hint of darkness in its very distant past adds to its mystique. The Gnawa ethnic group were probably trafficke
