The Maluf System by Marzouk Mejri & Salvatore Morra is a post-revival movement of maluf music, one of Tunisia's most complex traditional musical genres of ancient origins. Through the integration of transnational musical identifications, the project explores the rebirth of maluf in migratory contexts, changes in its nature and its new transmissions and diffusions. The album “Eddiwen” (songbook) is an anthology of maluf repertoire based on Tunisian modal scales (tubu’a) and on lyrics both in classical Arabic and Tunisian dialect. The story begins with a march from the Ottoman military tradition in Tunisia (track 1) and the memories of Marzouk’s father performing it with the brass band of Tebourba (1950s). Tracks 3 and 4 are compounded pieces in modes asba’in and mazmoum, drawn from the large nubas whose lyrics tell of love, nostalgia, and happiness, as well as the song Naoura (track 8), which is a journey through the Tunisian musical sounds. Track 2, titled “A”, the first letter of Arabic alphabet, and track 9 (Oh Lovers) include timbres that are not normally heard in more urban repertoires of maluf, and they are songs which highlight the African-Berber roots of this music, both in its mediterranean contexts and in trans-Saharan movements across the region. In tracks 6 and 10, Maluf System creates and launches an idiom of world music sets for maluf through the standardisation of two practices: “Sufiyet” plural of Sufi, a large-scale musical form of trance ceremonies according to principles of sonic-spiritual progression; and “Raqs” (dance) a rhythmical compendium of Tunisian folk dances (sa’adawi, bunawwara, sugha and fazzani). All tracks are arrangements by Mejri and Morra except for track 5 (The Azure Door), an original composition by Morra inspired by the architecture of Medina houses in Kairouan and track 7 (Beauty), an original composition by Mejri dedicated to his son Jamal.
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