U2 - "Fez - Being Born"

Regular readers of The View from Fez will remember our breaking the news about U2 renting the riad in Batha when the band chose this city to write music in, home as it is to the annual Festival of World Sacred Music. It was a perfect setting to sample some indigenous North African music.

‘The Festival of Sacred Music was a big lure for us and for Brian who has been very interested in Arabic music for years,’ Bono says. ‘We felt we might meet some interesting musicians while here – and we certainly have.’

Brian Eno expanded: "Whenever there was an aesthetic decision to be made we’ve asked, ‘How would it be solved in Arabic music?’ So that gives us another frame to think in - it doesn’t mean we always do what an Arabic player might have done but it gives us a different frame of reference."

In fact, he says, just coming to Morocco, after earlier periods writing in Ireland and France, has changed their approach to songwriting. ‘I’ve had this thing about Arabic music for ages, thinking that it’s where the next big future in fusion will come from – I’ve been saying that for about thirty years and finally I think it is coming true. ‘There are things I like a lot about Arabic music which are different to what we do in western music and so we have started trying to incorporate some of those elements. It is not a question of sounds so much but of different structural decisions about how things are made.’

U2 in the "riad studio" in Batha

So now the work is all done and the album "No Line On The Horizon", is due out on February 27 and will be available in five formats – standard jewel case, digipak, magazine, box and vinyl LP.

There are some great tracks such as the seven minute long "Moment of Surrender" and some interesting divergences in style. The other tracks are - ‘No Line On The Horizon’, ‘Magnificent’, ‘Moment Of Surrender’, ‘Unknown Caller’, ‘I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight’, ‘Get On Your Boots’, ‘Stand Up Comedy’, ‘White As Snow’, ‘Breathe’ and ‘Cedars Of Lebanon’.

But the one track we are all hanging out to hear is a longer one - ‘Fez – Being Born’. Here is a link to the streaming of the first single from the Album: Get on Your Boots. Enjoy!

The album artwork by Japanese artist and photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto.

And as a bonus here is a link to the 1991 video clip of Mysterious Ways - shot in Fez.

Mysterious Ways

Stephane Sednaoui [Video Director], Philippe Dupuis-Mendel [Video Producer], Daniel Lanois [Producer], Brian Eno [Producer]

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news