In 2014, I composed the music for a film that my friend Jean-Pierre Valentin made about the men and women who inhabit the valleys of Morocco's High Atlas Mountains.

Introspective lute music and bendir drum ripples accompany the villagers' daily lives, between irrigated gardens and the fortified granaries of yesteryear, between driving the flocks in the mountain pastures and harvesting barley, between shearing sheep and festive dances…

I also used electronic textures to paint the powerful landscapes of the Atlas Mountains, which can also be heard in the background of the lute notes, and from which distant songs sometimes emerge, invoking the age-old human presence in these immemorial mountains.







Composed by Boris Lelong
Electronic sounds and textures, lute and percussion
Field recordings in Morocco : Jean Pierre Valentin

The film



Maroc, Au coeur du Haut-Atlas
Morocco, In the heart of the High Atlas Mountains

"The Berber highlands fascinate visitors with their beautiful landscapes, powerful nature, inhabited valleys, isolated nomads, and windy summer pastures. I have been traveling through these areas for twenty years, each time meeting up with dear friends. Today, the mountains are changing: paved roads and electricity are reaching remote hamlets, disrupting daily life and customs. Nevertheless, the art of living, the remarkable cuisine and tea ceremony, the transhumance of herds from the mountain pastures, and the march of the mule drivers continue. Modernity and time are damaging sumptuous buildings, so passionate architects are at their bedside…"

Directed by Jean-Pierre Valentin (2014)