Just in – this Process Rebel Remix of Inky Jack’s “Under the Ground” using percussion loops created during our residency last year.  Get the loops for yourself here.

To get a better idea of Beyond Digital, this 9-minute “Behind-the-Scenes” video is a great place to begin:

With generous support from the Kindle Project, Kickstarter crowdsourcing, and Royal Air Maroc, the Beyond Digital team worked out of a two-story apartment in Casablanca for the month of June. We transformed the space into a work-center bustling with translators, local musicians, international visitors, and more. Our blog presents various members’ thoughts-in-progress from June. We partnered with Spanish cultural insitite Instituto Cervantes for 3 days of activities called “Beyond Digital presents,” including a free concert, talk, and photography workshop.

In September 2011, following up on one of the most exciting encounters from the June residency, three members of the Beyond Digital crew organized a week-long session of collaborative songwriting in Tangier with Imanaren’s bandleader, Hassan Wargui, and Clayton’s New York-based ensemble Nettle. The week culminated in a free open-air concert hosted by the Cinematheque de Tanger in the medina’s main square. Here is lyrical footage from our time there, set to “L’Avion”, one of the songs composed during that week and debuted at the concert:

Beyond Digital continues the process begun in 2011 by facilitating the worldwide release of some of our Moroccan collaborators’ albums in the US, organizing joint Imanaren – Nettle concerts in Europe, and planning further work in Morocco.

This is the essence of Beyond Digital’s mission: making space for meaningful encounters between artists of different media and from different contexts, and exploring the frictions and insights generated by these exchanges.

Go here for all the Fader pieces in reverse chronological order.

In August 2011, Dutch national newspaper NRC ran a feature on Beyond Digital and Clayton’s interest in Maghrebi use of the popular vocal effect called Auto-Tune. You can download Jacco Hupken’s article here: “En Zij Zijn Dus Groot Fan Van Auto-Tune” (PDF, 10MB)

SUFI PLUG INS is an interdisciplinary project dedicated to exploring non-western & poetic notions of sound in interaction with alternative interfaces. SUFI PLUG INS create a space where software design, music tools, encoded spirituality, digital art, and indigenous ontologies overlap. Jace Clayton initiated the project in 2010, and used his time in Morocco with Beyond Digital to research. Special thanks goes to Meryam Demnati of the Royal Institute for Amazigh Culture (IRCAM), who helped with the translations.

The first SUFI PLUG INS were released on May 14, 2012. SUFI PLUG INS v.1 are a free suite of seven audio software tools for Ableton Live (Max4Live). They include four software synthesizers hardwired to North African maqam scales with quartertone tuning built-in, a device called DEVOTION which lowers your computer’s volume 5 times a day during call to prayer (presets include Agnostic, Fervent, Devout), and a drone machine.

SUFI PLUG INS are clearly labeled in the Berber script of neo-Tifinaght – ⵙⴾⵔⵓ ⵜⴰⵎⵉⵎⵔⴰⵜ. Their mysterious (to non-Amazigh users) yet intuitive layout encourages and rewards experimentation. ‘Roll-over’ infotexts contain fragments of Sufi verse. A series of SPI Instructional Videos filmed on location in Morocco function as stand-alone art pieces or instances of ‘teaching by example.’

Led by Jace Clayton (DJ Rupture), the SUFI PLUG INS development team includes programmer Bill Bowen, designer Rosten Woo, Amazigh musician Hassan Wargui , and videographers Maggie Schmitt and Juan Alcón Durán. While the 1^st release is for Ableton Live users, we are working on making SUFI PLUG INS available as VSTs to ensure compatibility with Cubase, FruityLoops, and other music software widely used in Africa and the Middle East.

A physical Sufi Plug Ins Forever Box is expected for late 2012, and Clayton is currently preparing an installation version of the Sufi Plug Ins.

DEVOTION: Instructional Video

DRONE: Instructional Video

On a preliminary research trip for Beyond Digital, Jace Clayton found a particularly beautiful album of contemporary Berber music at a hijab-and-music stand Casablanca’s medina. This June Beyond Digital was able to contact Imanaren’s bandleader, Hassan Wargui. Wargui is from the Berber village of Issafen in south Morocco, but he moved to Casablanca for work. We clicked, and he ended up joining in the project. Beyond Digital, Wargui, and his musicians wrote music and filmed video shorts together, even traveling 10 hours south to Wargui’s home village to visit and record.

This embrace of sustained, grassroots collaboration lies at the heart of Beyond Digital.

In September 2011, Beyond Digital members Maggie Schmitt, Juan Alcon Duran, and Clayton returned to Morocco stage a free outdoor concert in Tangier with Hassan and Clayton’s ensemble Nettle. Here’s our writeup on the Tangier project.

In early 2012, Beyond Digital helped Wargui make his Imanaren album available worldwide on iTunes, Amazon, and other platforms.

In spring 2013, Wargui, Nettle, Schmitt, and Alcon, along with several Moroccan artists, will return to Issafen for further collaboration. This project is currently supported by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture.

Here is the information sheet on Imanaren’s debut album (PDF).

Here is Nina Power’s review of the Imanaren album, published in U.K. music magazine The Wire.

In addition to the Morocco plans, further collaborations between Imanaren and Clayton’s band Nettle hope to create touring opportunities for them in Europe and America.

This brief interview and video for Imanaren’s haunting “Taldrar N Lawlia (Flowering of the Wise)” was filmed on location in Casablanca and Issafen:

For more information on Beyond Digital’s extended collaboration with Hassan Wargui, please read Clayton and Schmitt’s essay in The Fader.

John Francis Peters, Beyond Digital’s main photographer, has a photo essay from his time in Morocco featured in TIME Magazine’s prestigious Lightbox. Lightbox features outstanding work from around the world as selected by TIME’s photo editors. John’s photo essay, “Insha’Allah: Morocco’s Changing Culture,” brought the Beyond Digital project to a mainstream audience.

Beyond Digital assembled a free collection of Moroccan percussion loops for use by musicians & DJs. These are high-quality original recordings of Moroccan percussion instruments such as the bendir frame drum, calabash, darabuka hand percussion, kraqeb metal castanets, and taarija. You’ll find grooves and fills played in the style of chaâbi, reggada, and some hybrid rhythms.

The material comes from Maga Bo’s recording sessions at the Beyond Digital HQ in Casablanca with Krifart, a percussionist who plays in the local band, Darga. The file names include the BPM – in 4/4. Note: some of these rhythms are in 6/8, but the BPMs reflect the tempo on a 4/4 grid. The loops are dual mono, 16 bit, 44.1 khz and include the respective .asd Ableton Live files. Performed by Krifart. Recorded by Maga Bo. Edited by Colin McSwiggen. Everything was recorded into Ableton Live using an M-Audio Fast Track Pro interface and an AKG 414 microphone.

Please use these freely and abundantly. If you do release it, please respect our Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike Creative Commons license, and contact us if you are interested in any use beyond the scope of that.

Download it here (total size = 34MB)

[flyer for the Nettle & Hassan Wargui concert in Tangier, Sept. 2011]

The team spent a week in a rented apartment in Tangiers sharing songs and stories, learning each other’s rhythms and words. Music substitutes language, an impossible relationship billows out and takes flight. At the end of the week, they gave a free outdoor concert hosted by the Cinematheque du Tanger, in the medina of Tangier.

Here is lyrical footage from the time in Tangier, set to “L’Avion”, one of the songs composed during that week.

Beyond Digital: Behind the Scenes

Beyond Digital for Automation Records Mix

1.  Automation – DJ Sobrino
2.  Track 5 – Unknown Artist
3.  Killer Sound (Heavy Feet Remix) – Zinc
4.  Kuduro Caliente – Prophex
5.  Monolith – Migrant
6.  Rub-A-Dub Bounce – DJ Flack
7.  Atoanagaroa – Rodrigo Brandão
8.  Gwababa (schlachthof Bronx Remix) – Spoek Mathambo
9.  Bhangra Dance (Zeder Remix) – Zombies for Money
10.  Eloy vs. Mbz – Villa Diamante
11.  Aonde está Meu Outro Par de Sandalia Havaiana – DuSouto
12.  Mikono Kweney Hewa – Muthoni the Drummer Queen
13. Samborigeno (Maga Bo Remix feat. Funkero) – DJ Farrapo
14.  Ransom (Fletcher’s Deepest Darkest Dub) – Maga Bo
15.  Red Skin Girl (ATCR Remix) – A Tribe Called Red
16.  Black History Month – Saul Williams
17.  Coragem – Unknown Artist
18.  Skunky – Kanka
19.  samba reggae break
20.  Bills – Bird Peterson
21.  El Mudo (Santos Tijuanero Remix) – unknown artist
22.  Nwampfundla – Tshesha Boys
23.  Amen Break
24.  Rumbling Cork Screw – Otto Van Schirach
25.  Systema Fobica (Ubaranamaralina) – BaianaSystem
26.  Dem Can’t Stop We From Talk – Anthony B Meets Subatomic Sound System
27.  NYC-2-Africa Dubstrumental – Subatomic Sound System & Nomadic Was
28.  La Cola Lex – El Remolon
29.  Bonafidekilla (Aaron Spectre Remix) – Math Head
30.  First Anal – Fury Project
31.  Ta Violento – Javier Estrada & Boogat
32.  El Cuco – Nerd Rage & Sluggo
33.  The Beach Era (DJEF Mix) – El Remolon
34.  Black Monday (Maga Bo Remix) – Teleseen

Total Time – 59:41

Listen on Soundcloud or download here.