The New York-based group of Moroccan musicians plays Gnawa music – the southern Moroccan trance music with roots in pre-islamic animist traditions.
Innov Gnawa uses traditional instrumentation such as the lute-like Sintir and the large castanet type Krakebs but their approach is resolutely innovative – a hypnotic, take on this ecstatic, trance-inducing tradition. Their debut album
Lila, was just released by
Daptone Records.