Moroccan House Music
“Feenkoum?” (which means “where are you?” in Arabic) is the first house music EP from the duo “Haleshla” and French producer and musician Delta Patch under the project name of “Dar Haleshla”. Haleshla’s normal style is a re-make of traditional Moroccan music, notably the Sufi styles from Meknès.
“Dar Haleshla” combines the trance inducing percussive and vocal elements of these traditional styles with House music beats and arrangements, and dub reggae sound effects, producing a hypnotic and heady mix.
Produced by French musician and producer Sylvain Loisel, Dar Haleshla has a unique sound and style. Each of the four tracks has its own sonic universe and journey but the four tracks together as an EP present a cohesive and unique project.
The EP “Feenkoum” is available for download on Simon’s site here.
About the project
Why house music?
“Haleshla” is a duo of traditional Moroccan music, albeit re-visited. So why the move to house music?
- The first reason is that Simon has always been interested in house music due to his work with percussion and drum loops. While recording and putting together his library of loops, he always bore in mind who he was making the loops for: musicians and producers essentially making music in their…houses.
- The second reason are the similarities between Haleshla’s trance style of drumming and singing and the same repetitive qualities found in house music.
- The last reason is when Simon and Mouna’s son came across a house music track by a Moroccan artist and remarked that the opening groove sounded pretty good. Simon realized that not only could he do the same but that he had gigabytes worth of percussion loops that would work really well with house music.
Some would say that it was a musical epiphany moment, others that Simon saw it as a way to finally make music that his children would listen to!
Have a listen to Dar Halshla and decide for yourself…..
The EP “Feenkoum” is available for download on Simon’s site here.
The first single “Sidi El Gnaoui” is out now and available for download here on Simon’s site, his Bandcamp page and for streaming on his Soundcloud page.
