In the modern music world, in which songs fly like digital packets throughfiber optic cables, the cassette is primarily a beautiful memory: somethingthat is over and sometimes actually turned to dust. Put on another tape fromyour own collection or that of a previous generation, somewhere deep in theeighties. If you hear anything at all, it’s probably a murmur over a layer ofhiss.
The magnetic tape has often already fallen apart, partly because the adhesiveused has been diluted by a process known in chemistry as hygroscopic: theproperty of substances to attract water molecules by themselves. Gone band,gone music from days gone by.
In Syria, the cassette has a completely different status. The cassette hasshaped the country’s rich music and made it what it is today: the culturalmemory of a nation crushed by civil war for twelve years. A memory that alsobecomes increasingly important as the war continues and the regime ofPresident Bashar al-Assad survives.
Dance and party music
From the early 1980s, Syrian musicians discovered that they could spread theirart to the masses with the cassette, something that was almost impossiblebefore the tape. Folk singers, Islamic-inspired vocalists, but also dance andparty companies from the smaller rural communities could easily recordperformances. They could then multiply that music in a simple way and sell itin small editions on the market, or distribute it to fellow musicians ororganizers of the better wedding parties.
A unique music industry was created, set up by the makers themselves and notby greedy record bosses. On the markets of large cities such as Aleppo andDamascus, but also in shops in village communities, new stocks of Syrian musicwere constantly being presented: a rapidly growing mountain of traditionalfolk dance music such as the dabke but also whining pop on brokensynthesizers, which could develop thanks to those cassettes.
Because the sudden, wide distribution of music in Syria also created a mutualinfluence: artists who were able to become acquainted with each other’spioneering work and thus push their own music in a new direction.
Enchantingly beautiful
The musical heyday in Syria is actually called ‘the cassette era’, and runsfrom 1980 to the beginning of the Syrian popular uprising in 2011. Thecountless tapes from that era have captured an unprecedentedly rich musicalculture that sometimes goes beyond your understanding, no matter how longeryou listen to it.
And listening to that sometimes enchantingly beautiful cassette music is nowalso possible, thanks to a project that has cleverly linked the old musicindustry with new technology. The recently launched website of the SyrianCassette Archives institute contains many hundreds of cassettes, often withwonderfully obscure covers, neatly digitized online. The doors of thesyriancassettearchives.org site are open: anyone can walk in and simply clickon a tape.
Singer Turki al Abed on the cover of the cassette Bnayyat Al Abbadi (AlAbbadi’s daughter, 2007).Image Syrian Cassette Archives
Just the first tape, by singer Fariha Al Abdullah, who has printed the samephoto of herself side by side three times for the wonderful cover with thetitle Shaabi Dabke. The music is as alienating as the packaging: excitingand jubilant party music propelled by rattling percussion and a stutteringkeyboard. Overlaid with the razor-sharp voice of Al Abdullah, who sings thatthere is always hope for better times, for example in the song Hanni eidek latbkin which means something like ‘use henna on your hands and stop crying’.
Then a trip can begin through unknown music territory for non-Syrians.Particularly exciting is also the cheerful wedding music of singer Ahmed alKoseem from the city of Daraa, who on his own initiative combined deeptraditional folk music with funky bass runs and a fiery bamboo flute thatshoots into the sky.
American music historian
Al Koseem played this music in 2009 at the wedding of the Al-Rifai family inthe village of Oum Walad, according to an extensive explanation of the tape.And in an interview, the singer explains how important the tape industry wasfor the development of his music. He first sang on a small scale, at partiesin his city. But when he found out that he could also record and distributehis music, his stature grew. Thanks to the distribution of his performances,he was even asked for parties in Jordan and that’s how his musical careerstarted.
The cassette collection was built by the American music historian and producerMark Gergis, of Iraqi origin, who came across all those beautiful covers withcontent on the market during his first trip through Syria in the latenineties. He bought a series of tapes, but also made contact with the dealersand later the artists who had filled the cassettes.
Gergis built up a considerable archive, which continued to grow when the warin Syria broke out and many Syrians fled abroad. After the 2011 revolution andits bloody suppression, the vibrant music culture imploded. But Gergis wasstill receiving tapes, this time from Syrians who had left their country butpacked their suitcases with cassettes. They also realized that music was ofgreat historical importance until the revolution, precisely because of thecultural development **** ran into a wall.
Assad’s face as a dance floor
The archivist knew what to do, also because the Syrian cassettes were ofcourse also in danger of decay. Gergis started digitizing his collection inorder to unlock the unique music frozen in time in the most accessible way.
Singer Ahmed al KoseemImage Syrian Cassette Archives
Thanks to the Syrian Cassette Archive, the inscrutable party music of, forexample, the rattling dabke has been preserved for eternity, and has becomeuntouchable by any oppressive army. According to American ethnomusicologistShayna Silberstein, affiliated with the University of Chicago, this folk dancedates back to pre-Islamic times. Dancers, arranged in a circle, stamped theirfeet to ecstatic music, presumably to combine the useful with the pleasant:the stamping pushed loose earth. But later, and certainly in dictatorialtimes, the meaning of the dance changed.
Until just before and just after the outbreak of the revolution, the dabkeproclaimed the unity of the ordinary Syrian people and the feet of the dancersactually stamped the political oppressors into the ground. Sometimesliterally, by putting photos of Assad on the earth and promoting his face to adance floor. That knowledge makes this music collection even more interesting.