Meet Hisham Mayet of Sublime Frequencies!

Photo: Hisham Mayet

You're probably already aware of the effort by Mr. Alan Bishop to make Sublime Frequencies the amazing CD and DVD label that it is today, but another guy who is at the SF office every business day is Hisham Mayet. That is, when he's not deep in Thailand, Niger, Libya, Morocco, or elsewhere, using his digital video camera to record ground-level musical performance, completely natural soul, and ecstatic truths, all with the kind of sheer simplicity, both technical and emotional, that makes entire museums blush. After being knocked out by four Mayet-filmed Sublime Frequencies DVD releases in a row, Larry "Fuzz-O" Dolman had to e-mail him some questions about what he does.

blastitude.com: Where are you from, where did you grow up?

Hisham Mayet: I was born on the Barbary Coast of North Africa a block away from the Mediterranean sea. From there London England was home for 4 years and then most of my adolescent years were shaped on the gulf coast of the southern USA.

blastitude.com: I gotta ask about this capsule review of Niger: Magic and Ecstasy in the Sahel that just ran in the Chicago Reader, by Peter Margasak. He uses the first couple sentences to praise the music that is documented, but then closes with this: "Aside from a vaguely anthropological explanation of possessions in the Bori cult, this could be the footage you shot with your videocam if you had wherewithal to travel this deep into north central Africa." How do you respond to that?

Hisham Mayet: You know man, guys like Margasak and people from The Wire like Clive Bell ("cheap as chips" & "smash and grab") come from the point of view of the established old guard. These guys are looking at this stuff in such the wrong context. I think they believe that if you haven't spent 10 years in film school or studied in a musical conservatory that your art does not count. They have been trained to debunk any sort of independent moves from outsiders like us. Do you really think that if Joe Blow went out to Niger he would have gotten the same footage? And what is that trying to say about the accessibility of this stuff? I could go on forever on these guys but I don't have the time, I'm working on three new films that can be panned in the future! All of these DVDs combined have been produced on a budget that's less than a week's catering bill for any kind of Indy film or financed documentary, and that fact alone I think pisses off a lot of people. It's being done and we are breaking down these walls to this stuff and it's shaking the foundation and taking it out of the hands of academia, the corporate industry, and the bureaucracy of the funding agencies that prohibit this material being dealt with in the now! When it matters most! It's analogous in so many respects throughout the 20th century in all mediums of art. In Painting, the "fauves" or wild beasts, as they were known, broke from the "impressionistic" traditions and started a revolution in art, and were ridiculed for it. The same can be said about free jazz in the 60's, or the Punk rock movement that liberated the bloated corpse of R&R in the 70's. There was always antagonism toward these movements and only time and history can tell how they have and will change the landscape of the times.
Where's the next trip and is there a certain music you're looking for there? I will be in Western Sahara and then overland to Mauritania for the month of February. I am specifically looking for a particular style, and from the research I hope to find it in all its electric glory!

...for the complete interview click here...

HISHAM MAYET FILMOGRAPHY

Jemaa El Fna: Morocco's Rendezvous of the Dead

Folk Music of the Sahara: Among the Tuareg of Libya

ISAN: Folk and Pop Music of Northeast Thailand

NIGER: Magic and Ecstasy in the Sahel

all available at sublimefrequencies.com

OTHERS

Berber Monkey Chants 2002

The Party (30 min.)2003

In Cold Blood 2003

Man Tit 2003

Sublime Latitudes 2003

Nostalgia 2004

UPCOMING

Morocco: Musical Brotherhoods from theTrans-Saharan Highway (60 minutes)

(premiere at Arthurball Feb 25 2006)