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When Heather emailed me about doing a Chicago Aissawa session, I was instantly intrigued. The name itself is cool, and then when she described their music as an “8 to 10-piece Moroccan-style percussion band. Think hand drums. Sometimes stick drums. And really loud brass and reed horns,” I was hooked. Despite wanting to maintain an extensively diverse catalog of bands since the inception of CHS, I’ve found it difficult due to the fact there are so many great active rock bands that we want to record… Therefore, I was THRILLED to have Chicago Aissawa reach out to us, especially considering how active they are. They perform live fairly often, travel to Morocco on a regular basis to study with native players, and host open jams so others can be apart of the music (I jammed for a few when they were over, and as they claim, it is seriously trance-like when playing it). They host open houses (vegetarian potlucks and drum jamming), as well as build beautiful handmade drums, at their shop called DrumFace, located in Logan Square. Check them out!

 

                                      -Matt