M’berra
Real World Records (37 mins)
Real World Records’ latest release harks back to the label’s grand tradition of intercultural collaborative fusion as Italian DJ and producer Raffaele Costantino – better known as Khalab – meets and mingles with the musician residents of the M’berra refugee camp in south-eastern Mauritania.
M’berra has existed since the early 1990s, when people fled violence in neighbouring northern Mali. Its population has fluctuated with relative periods of peace and war in the region, but recently there have been as many as 60,000 people living in the desert settlement. Khalab visited M’berra in 2017 to meet its people, record its sounds and, it turns out, to create a 14-strong ensemble of Tuareg and Hassaniyya musicians, playing their own music in their own styles together. Among the musicians are members of groups such as Tartit, Tafalawist and Imarhan Timbuktu – from the population of a refugee camp, a supergroup.
Read the full review over at The Quietus.