DRAMA OF EXILE 1 & 2 :
In Clarendon Road (London), Mad shared a home with Nico & friends in 1981. They recorded Drama of Exile at the Stawberry Studio but just before mixing, the shady producer Aaron Six stoled the tapes and run away in Germany where he released a vinyl pirat of Drama of Exile(one of the first time that a pirat came out before the official one). Except some musicians wich didn't appreciate the fact to be unpayed, the band came back to the studio and re-recorded again the album they just finished. That's the raison why two different versions of Drama of Exile now exist.
Read more and Listen to Drama of Exile's extracts in
>>Caravan Serail<<
MICKAEL RILEY :
Singer and co-fondator of Stell Pulse, Mickael riley stop the band in 1980, start a solo carrier and became a produceur. He create in 1986 the Reggae Philarmonic Orchestra and teach his view of music in university. He produced"Plastic Joe", third Mad's album (CBS -unrealised up today). Plastic Joe is about the through story of a veteran from the vietnam war touched at the head, wearing a plastic bag as a hat and sleeping at the door of his own appartement.
SAPHO :
When he met for the first time Sapho in 1976, Mad was playing with his
band Rahmann at Riviera 76, the Castellet Festival organised by Mickael Lang
(organyser of the Woodstock Festival). She was not yet the singer that every
one knows but was part of a collectif called"Albert and his Polyorcetique Fanfare".
They meet again in 1985 and stay musicaly together up to 1990 after several
concerts in Europa, Africa, Scandinavia and Japan. Add to all this 4 albums
with a participation of Mad at the arrangements
Read more and Hear more in
>>Caravan
Serail<<
JEAN LOUIS AUBERT :
Through FeedBack, a well known french percussionist,
Jean Louis Aubert have been in touch with Mad. He invited Mad for a t.v show
on Arte where Mad played with a persian tar and an afghani rebab. In 1997, after
discovering "Talisman", he invited Mad to play as support band for the complete
Stockholm Tour (1997/1998).
Read more and Hear more in
>>Caravan
Serail<<
MAURANE :
Singer from Belgium, Maurane have a deepfull & generous voice. The producer Goubitch asked Mad to perform on rebab, saz, santur and dilruba on three titles for the album"Toi du Monde" at the Davoust Studio (Paris).
>> Listen <<
NILDA FERNANDEZ :
Trip in the Theatre de la Renaissance with
Nilda, subtil ambassador of senses. When he performed at the Theatre de la Renaissance,
Nilda made a proposition to Mad : to play, equiped with a wireless system, from
the public side in a totaly liberty of expression, using the idea of a nomad
musician. He invited him later, to play in his album"Los Dias Aquellos".
Read more and Hear more in
>>Caravan
Serail<<
MICKAEL HUTCHENCE :
In 1995, Mad was contacted for Mickael Hutchence, singer of INXS, by Gus Till. They had a dinner together in a chinese restaurant in Paris /Porte de Clignancourt. During one hour and half, Mickael didn't say a word to Mad. At the end of the meal, Mickael sayd to Mad, i'm puting a band together for my solo album, want you come tomorrow ? The day after, when they had recorded for the entire day a Donovan song, Mad had the job. While he was celebrating his birthday in"Les Bains Douches", Mickael Hutchence, talking about INXS, sayd to Mad"Im ridding a dead horse". Infortunatly, an enormous scandal did affect Mickael who planed for later the recording of his album. He died in 1998 just before the studio sessions.
JAMI CATO :
In 1995, invited by Keziah Jones, Mad played in London at the Troubadour. At the end of Mad's gig, Jami, wich was recording during this period, invited him to play on it. Mad had discoverd a sweet singer, subtil and deep. Later on, Jami was contcted by Maxy Jazzand became one of the Faithless singer.
SIMON POSTFORD :
Simon is one of theLondon techno-transe scene guru. After "Hallucinogene" and just before quitting Dragonfly to found his own companyTwisted Records. He met Mad wich was recording in the Youth Studio Talisman. They recorded together Aqua Sufi. The Mad session was, with his agrement, satured by effects until drawning the dilrtuba sound inside electronic.
Djinn Concept :
The meeting with Vasken Solakian in 1982 allowed Mad to show the evidence of similarity (rythm and harmony) unbetween armenian and persian music. A meeting under the signe of Sayat Nova from the cult movie of Serguei Paradjanov. The experimental theater have been the modern art inside the famous"Galerie des Lombards" directed by Joelle CarlIzard. From 82 to 84, Mad was signed by this art gallery, which was quit inconventional for a musician.
+ NEXT
Djinn Concept :
They developped together the idea of a total art where Mad met painters, sculptors, engravers in there"atelier" while they were preparing an exibition. From those shared moments, Mad was composing a musical serie which was played after by his band Djinn Concept during the preview. Concert which was recorded and diffused during the total exibition. Sometime the dance was present, represented by a contemporary japonese dancer, Taka. When the Velvet Underground muse Nico asked Mad to play with her in Scandinavia, he asked Vasken, a member of Djinn Concept to follow. A double live recorded during an exibition came out trough Sand Records in 1983.
- PREVIOUS
AXEL BAUER :
During many years, Axel didn't made a record. After a long lonelyness and a trip in the south algerian desert, he called Mad to participate to his album"Simple mortel". After a long time without seen each other, a recovered friendship gave life to a concerts serie.
>> Listen <<
TALISMAN :
In may 1996, Mad had a meeting with Gus Till to the Dragonfly Studios to record "Turban Bolck". When Mad did arrived at the Studio, Gus welcomed him with care but at the middle of a phrase, he fell a sleep for more than 15 days (london nights overdose?). The studio was booked for 7 days, so Youth, (Killing Joke bass player and owner of the studio) proposed to Mad to used it if he liked. From this chaotic start the album"Talisman" went through. A rare album where Mad Sheer Khan plays all alone the acoustic & electronic spaces with subtility.
>> Listen <<
SUBRAMANIAM :
He is one of the best violonist wich have ever been on earth. He played with the best masters (Yehudi Menwin, Rampal...). At the end of 1998, while Philippe Gondouin, Detour director, was listening to"Spiritual Shower" of Mad Sheer Khan Os Talisman album, Subramaniam, on his way to an other office stoped and asked the name of this musician playing. Few monthes after he answered positively to the Mad's invitation to play on Night of India (1001 Nights / Warner - Atlantic)
ALLAH :
It's from Bechar, town where he growed up, that Allah, ud master, made its reputation all over Algeria. A short time after his venue to France he was invited to perform alone in the well known Theatre de la Ville / Paris. He is now an international musician. He met Mad during a party wher'e they played together. They will meet several times and, naturely, Mad invited him to play on "Night of Algeria" (1001 Nights (Warner / Atlantic).
MAHJUBA :
During the recording of a charity album for an Algerian association, his mother is in a final phase of cancer. This album is a long love poetry from a sun to his mother. She died before the end of the recording. The name of this album was given by a saint from Algeria to his mother : Mahjuba,"The Protected".
>> Listen <<
SAMARKAND HOTEL :
The London hotel where Jimi spent his last
night. Samarkand !! The town of caravans and stars discoverer. A foetus commenting
his wiew of the world from his mother belly, was the last theme aproach by Hendrix
for his last record he never made. In his new album, this is the idea of reincarnation
and rebirth that Mad Sheer Khan is expressing. Like Jimi Hendrix did with Bob
Dylan, Mick Jaegger, Keith Richard, Elmore James, John Lennon, Paul Mc Cartney,
Lonny Youngblood, Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton, he is re-performing the Hendrix
composer and his particular world with acoustic instruments from the reincarnation
land : India, and the land of magics : Maroco, country where Hendrix was visiting
and where he played with Gnawas a short time before his death.
>> Listen <<
Stony Rain :
Unbetween 92 & 94, Mad came back to a more traditionnal sound, backed up by a Commorian singer and percussionist, Nawal & three Algerian musicians, Nasserdin Dalil at the flute & sax (Mozart l' Egyptien), Idir Lahbib, at the harmonica, Mohamed Belal at the derbuka. The Mad's compositions during this period was very near to the sixties protest songs (lyrics talking about the aburdity of exiles and wars), chaabi & turkish gipsys for the music. Mad played a lot in Turkey where he was called the"Gipsy Hart" singer. Hystory & infos. During the antic period, Algeria was called Numidy. During centurys, suffering of many conquests (Romans, Arabs, Turkish, French...). The country name El Djazair (Algeria) means" he came to visit". No coment. The Masters came & went, but the algerian identity had afterall, survive, integrating into it's interior personality different influences wich are commun to the mediterraneans countries. (Seas are more ofen Nations than lands).
JIMI HENDRIX :
Mad was 15 when Jimi died.Two years before a friend gave to him "Are you experienced". Immediatly, this music did talk to him, the play of Hendrix seemed very familiar and near to the play of Hadj El Anka, the bluesman from the Algier's Casbah. Anyway it's the African revolt that he heard from this Afro-Cherokee from America. Mad saw the Monterey Pop Festival movie showing Hendrix into the public listening to Ravi Shankar. He also saw him in the Woodstock Festival movie where Star Sprangled Banner is interpreted by a black dressed with a Cherokee coat, playing a national hymn like an electric raga. Mad in the mean time was wearing the turban of his ancesters, answering to a racist school principal. Lately, he will heard the story of this Gnawa from Essaouira who played with Jimi and keep home a picture where they are together.
TAG :
Born from the Underground and founded by Mad Sheer Khan, the Tag is a music transposing traditional instruments from one country to the culture of another. Translating the idea of a migration, integrating its environement but respecting its original form. So, reversing the pōles of notions and in opposition to samplers, the machines and there electronic world are drived by acoustic instruments. The Tag movement is the expression of an immigration with no complexes using their traditional instruments to drive the last electro tools. An acoustic tradition expressing itself with the electro culture trough the window of its origins.
+ PROTOTYPES
DILRUBA :
This North Indian violin is combining the sarangi and the sitar. Created 300 years ago by a Princess demand who would like to play the sarangi without hurting her fingers (sarangi players have the skin by the neals or the neals, depending of the technic theys used, mutilated by the pracice of there instrument) Dilruba means the sound of the hart. (24 strings)
ESRAJ :
Similar as the dilruba with a different bodyshape and less strings (20 strings)
PERSIAN MUSIC :
The persian music is the mother of several musics. The only fact that the word"tar" means in persian"string" tells everything of the sitar and the guitar origins. No coment. Great theoricians and musicians as Farabi (10th century), Avicene (real name Ibn Messina, 11th century) and Safiodin (13th century) all three persians although they expressed themselves in arabic, had left to us many important thé ;orics books. We offently mix arabism and islamism. Yet it is two distinctive things. Islamic religion did clean a corrupted society where the oppression of the weak had reached frightenings proportions and breng a princip of equality wich explain for a great part its quick success. The Islamic civilisation had open out an artistic and literary flowering very alive.
+ SUITE
PERSIAN MUSIC :
Even if music and dance have been used to express the sacral by the Soufi Community, the music in Iran have been opressed during several centurys. But even so, some musicians did continue to play and teach in secret. Which could be a raison why for the people of Iran did like instruments with a confidential sonority like the setār. The music seems devoted to a slow death but music is like water, if you attempt to close its way, it find another one somewhere else.
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TAR :
The tar is a persian luth, body made of mulberry, neck in walnut and bones. The shape of the body is a eight, symbol of infinity. The bridge lay on a very thin skean. The pick (mezrab) is made of a thick copper and produce a light and cristal sound on the three double strings. In persian tar mean strings. (setār se= three / tar= strings"three strings")
SANTUR :
The santur can considering himself as the piano ancester. Each note have 4 strings upon a trapezoļd harmonic table. Asantur have 24 notes on three octaves. Played by two sticks wich have the same foction as the piano hammer. The santur is a persian instrument existing in China and recently in India.(The cymbalum is part of the santur family).
Paben &Shapun Das :
From the hart of Paris two young Bauls welcome Mad into Bengal (The Bauls are a musical caste, ancester of the Gipsys and living in Shantinigitoun,West Bengal. They sing Fakir Lalann words, rebel lyrics from the 13 th century full of phylosophy and humanity).
Read en Hear more in
>>Caravan Serail<<
Moulei M'Bareck :
In 1993, Mad met the Gnawa Master Mouleļ M'Bareck trough Pierre. After this meeting they decide to record an album. Rearsals was organised for september. In december, Mad and a musician staff went to Mecknes. A superb experience unified them, up to the recording of an album in Rabbah. In 1998, Mad came back to record with Mouleļ M'Bareck but this time for his own album"1001 Nights" a song called Gnawa Sunrise.
Gnawa Music :
The Gnawas are a marocan traditional musicians brotherhood. Through doctors of soul. They used transe for centurys as medecin in remaindings of Bilal, liberated slave, first muezzin. The hajouj,/ gembre, the t'bal, and the qaraqabs are the ritual instruments.
Read and Hear more in
>>Caravan Serail<<
Rahmann :
In 1973 at the age of 18, Mahamad Hadi (Mad
Sheer Khan) signe a strong compositions serie which express through a complexe
polyrythmy and melodies with no age, the unity of a world where the frontiers
unbetween the classical and rural sound of both, occident and orient, smash
into pieces. To play his composition, he formed IN 1975 Rahmann, band comosed
by musicians from Europa, South America and Orient. (Rahmann - Polydor Records-1980)
>>
Listen <<
John Mc Laughlin :
When he did rent the Ramses Studio in april 81, Mad did'nt expect to have one ofthe best guitar player of the world at the bass.
Read more in
>>Caravan Serail<<
TAMPURA :
The tampura is a classical indian instrument, creating a drone where the voices and soloist instruments plays the art of ragas.
Cuban Percussions
Djum-djum :
Bass drum from West Africa, (Mali, Senegal). Empty wood colomn with two goat skins. The sound is deep, low and mat
1001 nights :
1001 Nights a été plebiscité par la presse
americaine et anglaise, CLASSé parmi les dix
meilleurs disques de l'année 2000 par le magazine anglais Songlines, CLASSé 6eme
dans les "European World Charts" et sélection
officielle RFI 2000 Awards (1001Nights-
Detour/WarnerClassic/Atlantic). C'est une
odyssée des sentiments humains représentée
par 7 chanteuses : Navajo, Algerienne,
Tibétaine, Indienne, Israélienne, Persane et
Malienne. 7 poèmes issues des Mille et Une Nuits
qui traduisent la douleur du monde et l'espoir.
Une ode musicale dédiée à l'être humain. Des
solistes prestigieux comme Subramaniam et
Allah illuminent des compositions de Mad Sheer
Khan qui a réussi l'incroyable pari de réunir des
cultures différentes dans un même album,
démontrant que tout ce qui monte converge. Le
grand orientaliste Renée Khawam a fait cette
dédicace. "Le mot peut sauver des vie, il peut
aussi tuer. Il ne faut pas s'y fier. Le sens des
1001 nuits c'est que seul l'amour pourra sauver
le monde". (Depuis , Mamani Keita a sorti
"Electro Bamako" (Universal), Nourith a fait les
"Dix Commandements" et Parvin Gavdan a sorti
"Rozaneh" (Detour/Warner Classic).
>> Listen <<
Marocan Percussions :
Il n'y a pas une mais des musiques
marocaines, soit très africaine avec une
maitrise du rythme qui est prodigieuse, soit
lié à la musique andalouse issue elle mźme de
la cour de Bagdad. Les poèmes sont le
dénominateur commun. La musique Andalouse
et ses Noubas raffinées ont de grands représentants au Maroc, bien sûr la
musique des Gnawas et leur ode au prophète
ont une place importante dans la société
Marocaine. Les percussions sont des crotales
appelés qerqebs, sorte de castagnettes en
métal qui rythment les lilas, (exorcisme
musical pratiqué par les Gnawas) le chef
(ma'alem) dirige ses musicien par
l'intermédiaire d'un grand tambour appelé
t'bal. L'instrument qui est joué par le
chanteur et qui est l'antenne vers les
esprits est le hajouj ou gembri.
Indian Percussions
Tablas :
The tabla set is composed by two drums with a black pastille stick on the skin. The tabla made of wood is high and played by the right hand. The baya, made of metal is low and round and played whith the left hand
Harem :
It took many years before he finaly, en 1987, met three talented musicians : Malika Rasmussen Makouf at the bass guitar, Farida Kahina Tadjene at the drums & Helen Hartzen at the sax & keyboard. The Trans-Siberian met the Orient Express, ice & sand deserts joigning together. During 5 years, the band will turn together in France, Switzerland, Maroco, Turkey, Germany. They have been seen in the Paleo Festival of Nyons, at the Francofolies of La Rochelle. They have been filmed during a parisian concert by NHK (japonese television) and will leave and uncommun adventure with Panasonic (Zebra Zone).
