NEW ALBUMS
MDOU MOCTAR
Afrique Victime MATADOR 9/10
Mesmerising meld of Tuareg folk tradition and modern rock.
By Sharon O’Connell
“Why is this happening”: Mdou Moctar (second right) and his band
WH MOUSTAPHA
WHAT’S known as “desert blues” by western music consumers clearly has a history aeons older than Tinariwen – but it’s fair to say that the sound was popularised by their second album, 2004’s Amassakoul, a hybrid of assouf and electric rock. If the Malian band have become the style’s leading ambassadors, they’re by no means its sole representatives: Songhoy Blues, Imarhan, Tamikrest and Kel Assouf each have their own identity and are some of the names now well established outside Africa. Mdou Moctar, maybe less so.
The songwriter and guitarist, born Mahamadou Souleymane, is from Agadez, a desert city in central Niger, and has four studio albums proper and one movie soundtrack (all on US label Sahel Sounds) under his belt, plus a live record for Third Man. He also has an interesting backstory, which has perhaps been advanced at the expense of his music: Moctar built his first guitar and taught himself to play; his early recordings became popular on Africa’s mobile MP3-sharing networks; he also wrote and starred in the first Tuareg-language film, a homage to Purple Rain that told his own life story. However, that emphasis should shift with Afrique Victime.
An exhilarating band set that mixes electric and acoustic instrumentation, it’s at once fiercely modern and as ancient as the Niger river. As with previous albums, its roots are in the country’s takamba style, which is played on the tahardent (three-stringed lute) and calabash, and is popular at weddings. But on
Afrique
Victime, ’70s psych and ’80s rock are defining elements, with wild solos a foil for hypnotic contemplation. It leans on the seemingly intuitive interplay between Moctar’s lead shredding – of a gutsy yet fluid kind that recalls Van Halen, Prince and fellow lefty Hendrix – and the vital pulses of his long-serving rhythm guitarist, Ahmoudou Madassane. Mikey Coltun –a musician from New York who’s played bass with Moctar for about three years and has also served in Steve Gunn’s band – produces. Songs were recorded while the group were on tour in 2019 promoting Ilana:
The
Creator, in various hotel rooms, apartments, backstage at venues, in Coltun’s mobile unit (Studio Moustique) and in the field in Niger, although the main tracking was done in studios in the US and Netherlands.