Le Nom du Vent

In 2001 Mäâk (as a sextet) spent two weeks in Essaouira, jamming and living together and immersing themselves in the music and the ways of the Gnawa…
All under the mischievous and ever present eye of the gusting Shergui winds…That’s where the colour and texture of “Le nom du Vent” comes from.
They wanted to find a recording set-up in which the spirit of instantaneous creation, free improvisation and musical banter, that has so become part of the “Mâäkian” sound, could really exist and come into its own. There were three days of intense “live” sessioning in which they chose to play close together, facing each other in a circle, feeding off the music as it found its place in the natural acoustic surrounding them on the stage of an empty theater.

“…tranquility, gentleness and an ability not to rush things create the space necessary for an open and intimate dialogue. Space is of vital importance to the spirit of this album. Often empty, spaces fill and then unfill, as were organically, throughout the album, most often following in the tracks of free improvisations that take the form of conversations filled with humor…”