It’s two in the morning in the little village of Joujouka in the Ahl Srif mountains of Morocco, and surely the oldest and loudest acoustic band on the planet are celebrating the god Pan – who still holds sway here, in an uneasy alliance with Islam – while also warming up for Glastonbury, where they will open the Pyramid stage this weekend.
There’s a full moon over the olive grove where the Master Musicians have cut out a flat area as a stage, and tonight it is covered in carpets beneath a green and red patterned awning. The musicians are dressed in turbans and black embroidered djellaba robes, and all are seated apart from their elected leader, Ahmed El Attar, a drummer who parades in before them, driving on an intricate, improvised and trance-inducing dance music that continues without stop for hour after hour. This ancient artistry, stretching back over a thousand years, is powerful and complex; the musicians say it is spiritual, bringing a blessing, baraka, to those who listen.
