‘Twilight Prophecy’ reveals their process of integrating time-honored Gnawa practices with experimental production, extending the tradition into contemporary space.Gnawa music is ancient psychiatry. Emerging from centuries of spiritual practice in Morocco, it blends North African mysticism with Islamic, pre-Islamic African, and Jewish ceremonial elements. At its center lies the lila—an all-night healing ceremony where musicians invoke specific spirits through repetitive rhythms and the deep resonance of the low pitched, three stringed guembri, guiding participants into trance states for therapeutic and transcendental purposes. This shamanic practice uses music as a bridge between worlds, creating space for spiritual transformation and communal healing.
Atlas Phoenix, Eilon Elikam, and Andrew Fox work at the intersection of Moroccan Gnawa tradition and contemporary electronic music. Drawing from the ceremonial rhythms and spiritual practices of Gnawa culture, they layer guembri, drum machines, and synthesizers into compositions that move between meditative and kinetic states. Twilight Prophecy reveals their process of integrating time-honored Gnawa practices with experimental production, extending the tradition into contemporary space. Out now on We Be Friends.
Purchase Cassette: Imal Gnawa – Twilight Prophecy
Joyful Union Cassette Resource 