IFRIQIYYA ELECTRIQUE
Adorcism in the sociology of religion is defined by Jean-Michel Oughourlian as a "voluntary, desired, and curative possession" and is thus, in a sense, the polar opposite to exorcism. "It consists of practices and attitudes aimed at placating and integrating spiritual entities in a person or place. Unlike exorcism the presence of these entities is regarded as healing, empowering or beneficial. They are not considered necessarily negative, even if they appear to be so."
Fast-forward to modern-day Tunisia, where, located between the Saharan Djerid desert of salt and the oases of the country's South, François R. Cambuzat (guitars, vox, computer) and Gianna Greco (bass, vox, computer) literally spent months documenting the adorcist and post-industrial ritual of Saint Sidi Marzûq, an annual festive, sacrificial ritual called the Banga, 'performed' by the Haoussas (or former Black slave communities) of Tozeur, Nefta and Metlaoui to commemorate him. Cambuzat and Greco gathered over 300 hours of material to later be projected during the concerts of their new musical project by the name of IFRIQIYYA ÉLECTRIQUE.
IFRIQIYYA ÉLECTRIQUE then is not your average band. Audiences that gather to hear Cambuzat, Greco and musicians of the Banga community play are not witnessing a performance per se, but rather the re-presentation of a positively haunting, archaic event: "The devils are communicating with computers and electric guitars to recompose this ancient adorcist rite of possession and trance. No music note and no tempo were changed, for a transcendental, now post-industrial ceremony."
Watch the extract below to get a better impression of this extraordinary project, enabled by the French Institute of Tunisia. But don't get spirited away!
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