Subterranean Changes

Leila Bencharnia discusses her sound performance ⵜⵉⵍⵉⵙⵜ (Hudud), presented as part of Subterranean Changes at DADA Marrakech in April 2025. Her piece unfolds in response to composer Ahmed Essyad’s explorations of oral tradition and rhythmic complexity. Guided by indigenous systems of repetition and polyrhythm, Leila Bencharnia positions sound as a living, moving body—pushing against the confines o...

In conversation with Gilles Aubry, Thokozani Mhlambi examines early loudspeaker broadcasting systems in South Africa alongside African genealogies of listening. His research traces the cultural significance of inkomo (cow) and its diverse uses prior to colonialism among Zulu-speaking African communities, offering new perspectives on early listening practices. Drawing on the writings of H.I.E. Dhlo...

M’Barek Bouhchichi reads verses by M’barek Ben Zida (1925-1973), a black peasant poet from Tata, Morocco. By denouncing social and ethnic inequalities, Ben Zida opened up a rich field of socio-aesthetic possibilities. Written in the 1960s-70s and translated here into French, Ben Zida’s verses are presented alongside an electronic soundscape generated with a Serge analog synthesizer from the same p...

The Body of Sound: Ahmed Essyad’s Electroacoustic music Interview by Gilles Aubry Ahmed Essyad is a composer born in 1938 in Salé, Morocco. After studying music at the Rabat Conservatory in Morocco, he moved to Paris in 1962, where he became a pupil and then assistant to Max Deutsch. Interested in ethnomusicology, he focuses his research on orality and notation, as well as on musical time and puls...