Thomas Azier, Thursday 11th of February.... After traveling from Berlin to Amsterdam and then to Morocco yesterday I woke up pretty slow in the hotel bed, next to my new roommate and friend Daan from zZz. The humid air blew in my face and I opened the curtains to watch the largest city from Morocco in broad daylight. It was cloudy, but after standing there for a while, watching the little man cleaning the hotel garden, the sun fell on my face. I realized it was first sun I have seen for months now. It felt awkward, it warmed up my skin, but somehow my body didn’t understand what was happening. I was supposed to be in dark Berlin, minus ten degrees right now. After a short breakfast, me and Daan got the synths out of the cases and made a small set up in our hotel room. We started jamming, recording the whole session on my laptop. The first ideas were born. We met Jesse later in the lobby who had been collecting some gear through the city. We left to the abbatoir, the old slaughterhouse where we were supposed to record. The guys warned us that it was nothing you would ever expect and they were kind of right. After a taxi ride from one minute for way too much money, we arrived at the old abbatoir, now a cultural rendez vous for youngsters. They organize concerts; show documentaries and kids can make music here. You enter a huge hall with loads of hooks on the ceiling and the smell is awkward. You can imagine there were hundreds of dead animals hanging here. The atmosphere is oppressive, especially for me as a vegetarian. It’s not really the right country for me to get some food without meat, but I’ll survive… The hall we are going to record is super big, and has a huge reverb. Fortunately it looks not so ‘raw’ as the first hall. We have to figure out how we’re going to record drums in this hall, because it seems almost impossible. I decided to get some water and a sponge to clean some tables to put all the equipment on. Even this seems like hard task here. Not only is my French fucked up because of my years in Germany, my Arabic is also not that good. I get it done in the end, and start organizing. Although we are tired, the day turns out to be pretty productive. We work a couple of hours and make a few sketches and the outlines for some new tracks. I come up with an old idea of mine I still had in my computer to just start working. We find quick ways to work together, kind of working in groups and exchange ideas, listening to each other’s shit meanwhile. We end the day eating in a fish restaurant in the port. During dinner I realize I’m the youngest musician on this trip. It feels somehow special, I’m on the right road, and all I have to do is just keep on walking. I want to enjoy this trip as much as I can… According to everybody, the fish tastes amazing. Not particularly my thing, but I enjoy being in a different culture. I notice it’s a men culture; men have a lot of advantages. I’m not used to it. What starts to bother me at the end of the day is always this big money hustle. Getting a cab, or fruits, or whatever here is a big drag. There are no certain prices. Count always ten minutes of negotiations with your travel time. They try to fuck you up in every way you can think of. We learn during the day that if you want to, let’s say, buy an apple, you have to point to the apple and say the price. Tell them what you want to pay for it. Then the game starts, a couple of other men will stand around you telling you it’s absurd what you’re giving, they play your friend, then they make you feel bad because you’re negotiating about such small prices, and in the end you give them what they want. But it’s all right, at the end of the day we are the tourists here and have ‘loads of money’. Anyway, New day tomorrow, new sun, new impressions, new ideas… Thomas Azier…