Oum looked at the usual ingredients of an album and basically started removing them.
No big string section. No wind instruments. No layers of production hiding behind the vocals.
For “Dialddar,” the Moroccan singer built an entire project around something much more stripped back: the human voice and percussion.
The title translates roughly to “homemade,” and that idea runs through the whole album. Many of the percussion instruments used on the project were handmade in Marrakech, while the songs themselves are written in Moroccan darija.
And “percussion” here doesn’t only mean drums.
The project plays with bendirs, taarijas, claps, body percussion, glasses and calabashes, alongside sounds made using things like water, stones, salt and sesame seeds.
Basically, anything can become an instrument if Oum says so.
There’s also something intentionally imperfect about the sound. Because some of the handmade instruments react to temperature and humidity, their tuning can shift slightly depending on the environment. Instead of trying to remove that unpredictability, Oum made it part of the project.
Now, Dialddar is coming to Moroccan stages.
Oum will take the project through El Jadida on October 18, Meknès on October 19, Agadir on October 21 and Marrakech on October 22, alongside a largely female international ensemble.
Songs like “Abi,” dedicated to her late father, “Lalla,” and the Malhoun-inspired “Awan” give the album an intimate side too.
In an industry obsessed with adding more sounds, more layers and more production, Oum did the opposite.
And somehow made “less” sound very full.
