Zar Electrik

France / Morocco

Zar Electrik

🇫🇷 🇲🇦

Zar Electrik 🇫🇷 🇲🇦

A coming-together of three Mediterranean-scene activists creating a marriage between North-African trance, sub-Saharan loops, and bewitching electro that results in an explosive celebration. Paying homage to the ancient Zar ritual of Ethiopia and Egypt, it refers to a religious brotherhood that use the trance state  for healing and connection to the spirit world.

Zar Elecrik’s explosive sound unites traditional instruments familiar to fans of gnawa, the trance-inducing music of Morocco and the wider region – gumbri (lute), carcabas (castanets) – as well as the oud, guitar, kora and more, with the kind of machines and equipment that drive club music around the world. The result is dance music that travels across the Maghreb (northern Africa), and beyond: It’s African techno, Arabic dance, and much more.

The voices of multi-instrumentalist Anass Zine and electrified and effect-laden kora player Arthur Péneau are mixed and married by composer/producer Didier Simione’s synths and other gear to create a spellbinding electro-acoustic trip represents a call to dance that spins until it's dizzy, bubbling and swirling.