Håla Duett, Sheik Anorak (to the left) and Yann Joussein (to the right).
Håla Duett is a Swedish/French project formed by the drummer Yann Joussein and the guitarist/vocalist Sheik Anorak (aka Franck Gaffer), who owns the European exp/noise label Gaffer Records. The band explores the potential of Tuareg and Northern-African music in a Western sense with a gnarly psychedelic touch, as we can deduce from guitar patterns. Not casually, in the following part, it will be cited as a potential influence, for the relative sonic instance, the general discographic rediscovery of international and historical worldwide sonorities from the Third World; regarding this, it’s reasonable to think that a hypothetical, external element, less or more contemplated, could be a good, authentical inspiration for creative aims, because every artistic expression is also within a constant, experiential creative process.
In 2023 the cited duo released their first album named Asák, which was published by the label Collectif Coax, located in the French region of The Île-de-France. We talked about the above-mentioned topics with the two musicians who created the associated sonorities.
So, can you talk about how your project is born and developed? Can you explain where its exotic was tapped into?
Yann Joussein: “The duo is born in 2014, after meeting Franck Sheik Anorak several times here and there, and also thanks to his label Gaffer Records and just when Franck moved to Sweden. At the beginning, we had the idea to play kind of repetitive music inspired by Steve Reich or stuff like that, I used to play classical percussion and I was familiar with that 20th century composers. But we quickly evolved to a repetitive with a noise rock sound until Franck makes me discover Tuareg blues! Then we started to compose together songs from basic rhythms and patterns, sometimes from the guitar, sometimes from the drums and sometimes from the voice.”
The Rana EP (Collectif Coax, 2019), the first record by Håla Duett, expresses its potential in progress, in addition to a monotonal and distorted character, unifying Tuareg rock and krautrock, as well as a noise sound in timbers and effects, with the cathartic and sweeping Kida Ne Kidai Hanya and the wavering Ba’a Iyakance Ba. How did this initial creative approach develop?
Sheik Anorak: “This first EP was the result of this transition Yann mentioned. Our very first songs created during this process, and we tried to keep the production “cheap” on order to stay true to the aesthetics of this music. I think all those songs were created from a guitar riff/idea and then added the drums. We started working from drums patterns also after this recording. And we happened to record this EP while we were on tour in Sweden, a happy turn of events after the show in Gnesta.”
The first track in Asák, Djinn Medina, has an involving and colorful heterogeneity, linked to nigerien or sub-saharan sonorities. Can you talk about how this geographical imprinting happened?
Sheik Anorak: “This track was created in a similar way than the others I would say. Through trials and errors between the drums and guitar.
Guitar is heavily inspired from the Nigerian blues sonorities. The drums takes another approach but keeps its roots in Northern-African culture.
The chorus and “mid part” are more western rock influenced, and we used that contrast fully in the song.”
Mutuwar Mutuwa is characterized by African sonorities in a melodic sense, probably on behalf of the most recent re-discovering trend on “sounds around world” music. Its pop fashion has a melancholic form, in association with the intrinsic creative energy from Africa. How strong is your link with Afro culture from the viewpoint of melody?
Sheik Anorak: “Not sure I understand what you mean with “on the behalf of recent re-discovery of sounds around the world” but for me/us the melodies used in Tuareg blues music is 50% of why we/I like it, the other half being the repetitiveness of those idea, i.e. the trance. So this track is a bit more melody-oriented and it just comes from the fact that this melody came to me very spontaneously and we decided to make a song out of it. And it’s always a question about what energy to give to this song when we play it live as it’s a bit different from the rest.”
What They Say is characterized by noise digressions and abstract sounds, which evade the general exotism of the other songs. The soft noising sound is more evident in this album, where appears the influence of Sheik as Gaffer Records owner or as guitarist and vocalist in his band Vultures, Hyenas and Coyotes, or the role by Yann as a member of his kraut/free projects like Boolvar, Tribalism3 and his solo (in particular the album Keep The Bastards Honest). How did this modern component appear in your music?
Yann Joussein: “I think this one is composed from a drums pattern, Franck is adding a rhythmic guitar part who is quite different from the other songs, more brutal and less “world music”. However, he plays with the same sound as other songs on the album, that is how we think our music, we’ve been inspired by so much styles, the beginning is from Tuareg blues scale and Gnawa rhythms, the last one is somewhere between free rock and the suburb of Casablanca.”