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Abbar el Hamada

by Aziza Brahim

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  • Streaming + Download

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      €7.99 EUR  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Deluxe gatefold digifile with a full-color 16-page booklet.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Abbar el Hamada via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
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      €14.75 EUR or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 4 Aziza Brahim releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Mawja, Sahari, Abbar el Hamada, and Soutak. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      €25.47 EUR or more (25% OFF)

     

  • AZIZA BRAHIM CD BUNDLE

    Aziza Brahim's CD bundle Includes:

    - SOUTAK CD
    - ABBAR EL HAMADA CD

    Includes unlimited streaming of Abbar el Hamada via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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  • AZIZA BRAHIM LP BUNDLE

    Aziza Brahim's LP bundle Includes:

    - SOUTAK LP
    - ABBAR EL HAMADA LP
    - SAHARI LP

    Includes unlimited streaming of Abbar el Hamada via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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  • LP - 12" VINYL (with download code included)
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Heavyweight 180gm vinyl in a high quality gatefold sleeve. Includes a download code.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Abbar el Hamada via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.
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El wad 03:14
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6.
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Baraka 03:51
8.
Mani 05:25
9.
Intifada 02:55
10.
Los muros 04:41

about

Western Saharan musician/activist Aziza Brahim’s new album Abbar el Hamada (Across the Hamada), is a commanding and compassionate musical statement about, and for, the tumultuous age in which we live.

Raised in a Saharawi refugee camp in the Algerian desert, and living in exile for more than two decades (first in Cuba and currently in Barcelona), Brahim’s life and music embodies both the tragedies and hopes of the present-day migrant and refugee experience.

As walls and borders are again being raised though-out Europe and other corners of the world, Aziza Brahim’s passionately sung poetic defiance, is especially timely and profound.

Los Muros (The Walls), a dignified desert dreamscape; is emblematic of Aziza’s artistry. The lyrics morph from condemning the sand fortifications Morocco has erected along the Western Saharan border (to prevent the return of the Saharawi to their homeland), to a recognition that while walls are tragically universal, so is the imaginative spirit that encourages us to transcend them.

Another fleeting star was seen
Crossing the wall tonight,
Undetected by the radar,
Unnoticed by the guard.
On the land and the sea
The walls keep rising still.

The music and lyrics on Abbar el Hamada masterfully reflect the restless, imaginative search for home, explicit in the album’s title.

Hamada is the word used by the Saharawi people to describe the rocky desert landscape along the Algerian/Western Saharan frontier where tens of thousands of their people are stranded in purgatorial refugee camps. “For me, Abbar el Hamada (Across the Hamada) is a title that synthesizes our destiny as a country over the last 40 years”, Aziza explains. “We are suffering an injustice that condemns us to try and survive in an environment as inhospitable as the Hamada.”

When recently asked how she would best describe her musical mission and methods, Aziza’s reply was like her music; revealing and beautifully stated: “I’m not able to separate politics, cultural and personal concerns. So, the focus of my music is all of these areas at the same time. Political, because of its commitment to the denunciation of social injustice. Cultural, because it searches for new musical ideas. Personal, because it expresses the worries of a person that aspires to live with dignity in a better world.”

Innovation, naked truth, humility and political outcry: these are the raw materials of Aziza Brahim’s ever expanding musical vision. On her new album, Abbar el Hamada she fuses and fashions these elements into an unforgettable work that is both deeply inspired and deeply inspiring.

Abbar el Hamada (Across the Hamada):
A look around me after forty years of occupation, of exile, of diaspora. A conversation. A discussion between emigrants, refugees and stationaries; between patriots, expatriates and the stateless; between placed, postponed and displaced; between nomads and the sedentary; between Saharan, sub-Saharan, north Saharan and Saharawis. A conversation between countries, between cultures, between generations, between tribes, between beliefs, between people. People with no other resources than the word, their voices and the skin of their hands and drums. With no other intention than to change the situation by means of music, by means of the imagination, even if it is barely for a moment. Through the fences, the barriers, the camps, the iron bars, the walls, the barbed wire, the seas, the mountain ranges, the rivers, the borders. Across the Hamada.
---Aziza Brahim

credits

released March 4, 2016

Aziza Brahim: Vocals, Tabal, Backing Vocals, Esgarit

Badra Abdallahi: Backing Vocals

Guillen Aguilar: Bass Guitar, Spanish Guitar, Mandola and Electric Guitar on “Calles de Dajla”, ”El canto de la arena” and “Buscando la Paz”

Kalilou Sangare: Electric and Acoustic Guitar

Ignasi Cussó: Spanish and Electric Guitar

Aleix Tobias: Percussions and Drums

Sengane Ngom: Sabar, Tama, Djembe

With special guests:
Samba Touré: Electric Guitar (“Mani”)
Xavi Lozano: Flute/Mohoceño (”El canto de la arena”)
Chris Eckman: Organ (”El wad”)

All Music and Lyrics by Aziza Brahim
Arrangements by Guillem Aguilar and Aziza Brahim
Produced by Chris Eckman
Recorded by Marc Tena Aguade at Sol De Sants Studio, Barcelona
Mixed by Chris Eckman at Studio Zuma, Ljubljana
Mastered by Pavel Karlik at Sono Studios

Cover design: Boštjan Pavletič
Cover photo: Noe Mendelle

Dedicated to my people, after forty years of occupation, exile and diaspora.

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