Just one birth for ten thousand lost years / After time stops, ten thousand stolen flowers / Blown on the dreams of what still breathes, on the Earth and in the blue
Wind rose needles / To rediscover the meaning of the days that call us / Everything we were before, before love was lost / To still smell the scent of abandoned fruits / The sweet perfumes that rise embracing us whole
And like the thirst for water quenches the time that is lost / We will find balance chasing away black gold and angles / By following the light circles, the circles of birds / The ancient language of dreams and the spirit of flowing waters /
Without forgetting everything / The donkey who pulls the cart / Loves and the promise to make a new life / The sound of the rain when the windows open / We hear life singing / Invites us to remember
“The love that exudes from the smell of the earth”
Dialogue in Noujoum
“The love that exudes from the smell of the earth”. This is how we can translate the calligraphy of our friend Aziz. I love how the image of this calligraphy resonates with this song.
As part of the “Les Montagnes Bleues” project, sailing partly between the land of the rising sun and that of the setting sun, I wanted to hear how the creations resonate with each other across these countries crossed, linked by the intention of the link to Mother Earth and the spirits of the places, hear how these songs resonate in the places where they are born, inextricably linked to their atmospheres. I also wanted to see how Arabic calligraphy could be deployed in contrast with Japanese calligraphy, or as a mirror, and also see the body of a Moroccan dancer, bringing its musicality.
I thought very instinctively of Imane Elkabli and Aziz Bouyabrine for this dialogue, as well as Dounia Ait El Moumen, who filmed this video, because they seemed to have the qualities I was looking for: simplicity, heart, talent, and the ability to listen to the sensitive world, the invisible, the fragile living world.
To paraphrase the Zen monk “Ryokan”, I don’t like “cooks’ cuisine”, just as much as I don’t like “poets’ poetry”. It may seem ironic to write this, but it is not, I hear something in these words, and I let you feel for yourself what can be heard there. I like to create with artists who I feel resonate with this state of mind.
“A Single Birth” is very naturally, in its color, linked to the Orient, to Morocco, to Marrakech, the city where I wrote it. Perhaps this color is a bit like the ocher-gold of Aziz’s calligraphy, or even like the red that Imane wore on the day of this recording. The ocher of a warm sand that comforts, the red of a flower full of life. Resonating with a feeling I had about the city, full of contrasts, this song evokes the surge of precious and fragile life in a chaotic world, the awareness of taking care of it, of remembering that all living beings are in the circle. She says that the thirst for water brings us back to listening to the path of clear sources.
