Ifriqiyya Electrique

International experimental ensemble Ifriqiyya Electrique draws primary creative fuel from Banga, the traditional Sufi trance music of southern Tunisia. Guitarist, field recordist, and filmmaker François Cambuzat (Putan Club), bassist Gianna Greco, and Sufi trance musicians Tarek Sultan, Yahia Chouchen, and Youssef Ghazala established the group to examine, via thoroughly modern instrumentation, the ritual dimensions embedded in those Sufi practices.

The project originated in Tunisia’s Djerid Desert, site of the annual Banga ritual dedicated to Sidi Marzuq. For many residents of southern Tunisia this ceremony serves as a pivotal yearly gathering in which spirits are summoned to enter and possess participants; simultaneously it functions as a musical lineage centered on percussion and call-and-response vocals designed to induce trance states. Ifriqiyya Electrique’s own sound, generated through guitar, bass, and electronics, emerges as noisy, gritty, and forcefully propulsive. Glitterbeat released the band’s debut album, Ruwahine, in late 2017.