Coming up in 2025
“A road-trip through Morocco” is a collage of a tri-lingual-logbook, background noises, traditional songwriting, fusion-soaked instrumentals and intimate moments. We’re still working on it but thought it about time to let you know that, after having ‘done’ 10’000 km, a couple of tunes wanted to get written.
GEORGE LEITENBERGER – A road-trip through Morocco
During a road trip through Morocco I recorded a lot of atmospheric sounds in the busy streets, round a campfire surrounded only by the isolation of the heights of the Atlas Mountains, I captured Muezins’ calls to prayer, toll-booth-conversations, and other clips of daily life with the idea of later blending these with some music or film footage. Glaringly absent from my plan, however, was any new music … I had had no intention whatsoever of doing another album so quickly after the release of ROADMOVIES in the spring of 2023, but….
… following our 10,000 km road trek and having barely had time to unpack on returning to the homely shores of Lac Léman, I received an invitation to play at a special fund-raising event masterminded by my producer, Andreas Albrecht, at Berlin’s wonderful Zebrano-Theater. Andreas suggested that – in the very unlikely case that I would be able to come all the way to Berlin for just one show – “we should sit down and do some recording”.
And that’s how it all started. That’s why in the two weeks leading up to the Berlin event I unexpectedly found myself writing new tunes. So, once again, I found myself back on the road, this time heading to Berlin to lay down the tracks.
Two intense days, two concentrated sessions, like a jazz-era recording … All accomplished at Andreas’ studio, hidden at the end of another travelled alley, in Friedrichshain, with Andreas Albrecht on piano and percussion, Tobias Fleischer on bass and double-bass and Roddy McKinnon on electric and slide guitar. I contributed some vocals, guitars & guembri.
The idea was to get an edgy “roady” sound, potholes, loose gravel and all, get the foundation laid down and do the add-ons, white lines and signage later, at my atélier in Geneva’s Usine Kugler.
In Marrakesh, I happily exchanged a handful of dirhams for a guembri, also known as sintir or hejhouj – a three-stringed, camel-skin-covered, bass-plucked-lute that is hugely popular in Morocco. Guembris are renowned for the irresistible percussive sound they conjure up to the listener’s ear. And yes, my new camel-skinned lute features quite a lot on “A road-trip through Morocco”. Its unique mesmerizing sound plays an important role in the soundtrack, … of course, for my part, I don’t claim to be a guembri player …
It has been a fascinating journey through “a book of a thousand different pages”, as Mamadou from Tamegroute once put it. And, to stay with this picture: Our road trip through Morocco (via the Spanish Peninsula and the Strait) was a genuine page-turner.
To everyone who opened their door, their heart and soul:
Shoukrane
George Leitenberger
GEORGE LEITENBERGER – A ROAD-TRIP THROUGH MOROCCO – PHOTOS & TEASERS
Here are some photos and comments to the various teasers:
CROSSING THE STRAIT I (southbound) [ instrumental ]
Tarifa. Leaving port aboard the ferry for Tangier. Looking back to the quayside, passengers who had disembarked earlier in the day from the ferry from Morocco are still visible on the quayside: women, harvest hands, with a special visa, a time-bound work permit.
They’re waiting to be transported onwards to one of the countless plantations that have turned large parts of southern Andalusia into an ocean of plastic greenhouses. Pragmatic EU bureaucracy dictates that only women “with children” – the latter left at home in Morocco in the care of others – be granted such special visa treatment. How wonderful and wholesome it is to have fresh fruit and vegetables on our tables all year round.
Tangier, Morocco
GOING DOWN SOUTH
Voyaging through the fabulous Rif Mountains in our car, we note a subtle change: the ubiquitous police presence that has accompanied us on our journey so far, suddenly, has ended. Not to be left alone, beyond the windscreen, new-found road companions cajole to sell us something to smoke – nobody seems to understand that we are not interested. “What else did you come here for?”
EN ROUTE (The Road to M’hamid I)
From Tangier in the far north to M’hamid in the far south, where the road ends: Music, music, music. And in between, while crisscrossing the Atlas Mountains: total silencio.
AYACHI MOON [ instrumental ]
On the wrong “road”, in the wrong car, misdirected by a misleading map and the impossibility on a narrow cliff-edge track of doing a U-turn, for miles and miles to come.
Should we reverse? Decided to spend a chilly night in nowhere round the heat of a campfire near Jebl Ayachi.
The scent of thuya wood, the light of the moon, the shadow of the mountain: A gift of fate.
IN MY WOMAN’S EYES
The songs kicks off with the sounds of a pungi, a snake-charmer’s flute in Marakkech’s Jemaa-el-Fnaa (“square of the jugglers and the hanged”).
A NIGHT IN GARA MEDOUAR [ instrumental ]
“Ici, il n’y a que du vent, des serpents et des scorpions. Venez avec moi, chez moi il y a de la lumière.” With these comforting words the last fossil-dealer got back on his push-bike and
left us at sunset in the jaw-dropping enclosed solitude of the Gara Medouar, a horseshoe-shaped “round mountain”, a medieval military garrison and former Portuguese slave prison,
which has also served as useful staging-post for passing caravans, and today offers a scenic backdrop for blockbuster movies and a tourist-attraction for well-equipped off-roaders.
At night, a black wind, the Sharqi, mustered up, rattled our car, shook our souls and blew away the traces of the previous day.
CASABLANCA DAYDREAM
Slightly surreal, but when I mentioned I was planning to go to Casablanca this fellow showed up in various conversations:
Oh well…what is reality as long as there is a dream-factory?
WHERE IS THE DRÂA
Dying palm trees, houses engulfed in the ever-encroaching sand…the Drâa Valley is where the (Moroccan) Sahara begins. Since time immemorial, the Drâa River has nourished life in this vast natural oasis renowned for its palm groves. Today, due to climate change and other man-made excesses, such as energy-hungry tourism, the bed of the Drâa now lies dry for extended periods, a presage of drought and disaster. Welcomed by the embracing arms of dust, the itinerant tourist needs little reminding of the permanent contradiction of modern tourism. In the words of the late German author H. M. Enzensberger: “The tourist destroys that which he seeks – by finding it.”
P.S. As I’m writing these notes the entire area got swamped with torrential rainfall unseen in more than fifty years…
IN THE SHARQI (The Road to M’hamid II )
The Sharqi is a dry rasping wind that comes in from the Sahara Desert, kicking up violent dusty sandstorms that impact everyday life, like sandpaper drawn across soft skin.
KLEINE BUNTE FISCHE (Palais El Glaoui, Fès)
We came across the Palais El Glaoui by total chance – an unforgettable experience.
Please (do not yet) check website www.georgeleitenberger.com for translations into English and French. Special thanks to Bernard Pichon.
CROSSING THE STRAIT II (northbound) [ instrumental ]
With the lingering sound of the streets of Tangier still in one’s mind, the return to the shadowed alleys of the Spanish peninsula brings the new sounds of ever-present handclapping and singing. Heart-warming and sad – the trip through Morocco, the most exciting part of our road-trip, a dazzling memory in our rearview mirror.
ALJEZUR SUNDOWN
The name says it all: Aljezur, in today’s Portugal, was founded by the Moors who left far more than just their footprints – before being shown the door out of the Spanish peninsula.
We came by chance across this magnificent place and were to enjoy a few days relaxing in the delicious air and walking a different lonely sand, the nearby isolated beaches. An unexpected destination after a truly inspirational and magical road trip through Morocco.
