Formula Indie Sessions _ Interview with Guedra Guedra
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
My earliest memory connected to music is not a single moment, but more of a sensation that was built very early through listening. I grew up surrounded by the sounds of Moroccan music, cassettes we listened to at home, the radio, and later music from elsewhere that I discovered through television. Very young, I was fascinated by how sound could tell stories, carry memories, and create worlds. That is probably where it all started for me. I also remember the very strong impact of the music I heard in my daily environment: in the street, during ceremonies, at parties, with that very direct relationship between rhythm, body, and collective energy. Before even thinking about making music, I was already marked by this power of listening. Over time, this relationship became much more than a pleasure or a curiosity. It transformed into a way of thinking, searching, and creating.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
My passion for creating music was born gradually. It first started with listening, then it transformed into a need for practice. Very young, I was marked by popular Moroccan music, but also by other sonic universes I discovered through radio, television, and exchanges around me. Then there was a very important step in high school when I started playing drums and bass guitar in bands. We explored very different styles, from metal to dub to reggae, and this experience gave me a very direct relationship with rhythm, the physical energy of sound, and the collective dimension of music. Then, when I got my first computer, everything changed. I discovered production software and started building my own compositions. That is when I understood that music could become for me a total space of freedom, research, experimentation, and transformation.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
Guedra Guedra was born from a very clear need. After several years spent working on more experimental sound practices, on field recording, archives, installation, and sonic research, I felt the desire to create a project more directly linked to the energy of rhythm, dance, and the physical power of music. The project was built around the idea of recentering African rhythmic traditions within contemporary electronic music, not as a decoration or exotic quotation, but as a living structure, as the main force of composition. For me, Guedra Guedra is a space where cultural memory, rituals, sonic archives, forms of resistance, and contemporary production tools can enter into dialogue. It is also a project that carries a mission of decolonizing sound, in the sense that it seeks to reaffirm forms of listening, rhythms, and imaginaries that have often been marginalized by the dominant norms of music production.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
I would say my music is a form of « Future Music From the Past”. It is a hybrid language where field recordings, ancestral rhythms, voices, percussion, and certain traditional instruments meet bass music, analog synthesizers, drum machines, and more experimental production techniques. I try to build music that is both physical and conceptual, rooted in memory but turned toward the future. It can be very rhythmic, very immersive, sometimes almost trance-like, but it is also crossed by questions of identity, territory, mutation, and transmission. What interests me is not superficial fusion, but the creation of a sonic space where several temporalities and several worlds can coexist.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
One of the things that has most changed the way I make music is understanding that sound should not be treated only as an aesthetic material, but also as a living archive, as a form of memory, and sometimes as a political gesture. From the moment I started considering field recordings, voices, everyday textures, technical imperfections, or documentary traces as central materials rather than secondary ones, my way of composing completely shifted. I was no longer simply producing tracks, but constructing listening spaces where stories, presences, and heritages could continue to vibrate in other forms. This realization profoundly transformed my relationship to composition.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
In my creative process, field recordings and sonic material in general are essential. They are often the starting point or at least a fundamental material. I use a very mobile setup, with recorders like the Zoom H4 or H6, binaural microphones, sometimes contact mics, and in certain situations even my phone. I place great importance on being able to record quickly, in real contexts, without freezing the moment too much. Then, in the studio, analog synthesizers, drum machines, samplers, and production software become the tools that allow me to transform, fragment, layer, and reconfigure these materials. What is essential for me is not only technical quality in the classical sense, but the capacity of a sound to carry emotional, contextual, and rhythmic density.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
Honestly, I don’t have a specific track or artist I am listening to right now. I very rarely listen to music at home. Even when I am invited to play a set, I don’t prepare anything in advance. I choose my records based on the time slot and the curatorial direction of the night, then I mix on the spot. Otherwise, from time to time, I turn on the radio to hear what will be playing. My goal is more about filling my space with ambient sound, without a particular search for a specific title or artist.
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
My personal experiences have deeply shaped my music. Growing up in Casablanca, being nourished by both popular Moroccan music, the sounds of the street, rituals, ceremonies, and later by music from elsewhere, built in me a multiple and open listening from a very young age. Furthermore, travels, encounters, exchanges with other African artists, as well as the practice of sound in different forms, in art spaces, in music, with contemporary dancers, through radio, installation, and performance, led me to develop field recording projects. Working with archives and radio also reinforced this vision. All of this has made music, for me, not only a space for creation but also a way to reflect on questions of identity, transmission, memory, territory, and power relations. My artistic vision is therefore directly linked to my life experiences, my travels, my research, and my desire to think of sound as a sensitive material capable of carrying complex stories.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
I would like listeners to feel both physical energy and an inner openness. Of course, there is a dimension of movement, dance, pulsation, sometimes even trance in my music, but I also hope it can shift the way one listens. I hope people hear something other than a simple fusion of styles, that they perceive a moving memory, a presence of voices, rhythms, and textures that continue to live in the present. If there is a message, it is perhaps this one: sound can be a place of resistance, transformation, reappropriation, but also a means to reimagine the future without erasing what came before us.
What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
The most important lesson music has taught me is that listening can transform our relationship with the world. Music taught me that sound is never neutral, that it can carry memory, trouble, joy, resistance, and that it connects the body to history in a very profound way. It also taught me that creating is not only about producing something new, but also about listening to what is already there, what has been erased, what asks to be heard again differently. For me, music has become a way of thinking, learning, and staying in motion.
What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?
I don’t have a preferred festival or venue over another. For me, every space is a new listening space, and every audience is a new ear to address. What interests me is not so much the size or reputation of the place, but its capacity to create a true encounter between the sound and those who listen to it. An intimate room, a smoky club, a theatre, a gallery, an open-air space, a renowned festival, or a neighborhood event: each context offers a different dynamic, a new way to share music. Wherever there is an attentive and curious ear, there is a space for play and sharing. My dream, finally, is to continue traveling from ear to ear, from space to space, without ever settling into a habit.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
I don’t have a specific artist in mind, because what attracts me above all is reflection and difference. I like encounters that break habits, where everyone brings their own universe without trying to resemble what already exists. That said, if I had to cite a major influence, I would say I am a big fan of the album “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” by Brian Eno and David Byrne. What fascinates me is the idea of using voices recorded from the radio as raw material. This approach resonates deeply with my own work. I have already made quite a few recordings of local radio, which I have kept as personal archives. I have also done sound performances using radio tools and live frequency changes. So, if I were to dream of a collaboration, it would not necessarily be with a specific person, but rather with this idea: producing a track under the name Guedra Guedra that incorporates a radio sample. Why not one day?
Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links)
My music is available on all major platforms.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/intl-fr/artist/59bnrVjObngqDJYBOXH4kY
Bandcamp: https://guedraguedra.bandcamp.com/album/mutant
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/guedraguedra/
I centralize all my news (dates, releases, projects) on this single link: https://linktr.ee/guedraguedrapro
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
For the future, my desire is to continue deepening this research between African rhythms, sonic archives, field recordings, machines, and futuristic imaginaries. “Mutant” marked an important step because it allowed me to open a more organic, more intuitive, and more physical space in my way of composing. I would like to continue in this direction by going even further, both in music and in performance, and by expanding the possible forms of collaboration, transmission, and experimentation. What matters to me is to continue evolving this language, without repeating myself, while remaining faithful to the cultural and political depth that runs through the project.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
I hope that over time, listeners will understand that my work is not based on a simple idea of blending or fusion, but on a deeper approach related to listening, memory, research, and transformation. I hope they discover that behind every track, there is a very careful relationship to the voices, rhythms, textures, stories, and contexts from which sounds emerge. I also hope they perceive that my work seeks to build a language, a space where heritage, experimentation, dance, critical thought, and the future can coexist without hierarchy.
