Amaka Jaji - Tidet

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 200, August/September 2024.

Amaka Jaji
Tidet
Bloc C (39 mins)

If you're anything like me, you only need three words to make you want to listen to this album: Libyan Tuareg trap. Ooof, now there's promising. And Amaka Jaji delivers. Tidet grooves right from the start: synths mixing with pentatonic Saharan guitars, drum machines set to maximum lope, Jaji’s raspy, almost-whispered and ever-so-slightly autotuned songs in Tamasheq and Arabic, field recordings of Sufi events around his hometown of Ghat sampled over deep, dark bass… Everything about this album serves to paint a portrait of a Libya-raised, Tunis-based multi-instrumentalist intimately connected to his Tuareg and Sufi roots and profoundly immersed in the popular music of the world, from hip-hop and trap to raï and electronica. In the press release, Jaji says: ‘Tidet is not just an album; it's an act of resistance and a declaration of identity from an indigenous Tuareg artist.” This is modern, outward-facing Tuareg music like you’ve never heard before – and it’s all the better for it.

Bassekou Kouyate & Amy Sacko - Djudjon: L’Oiseau de Garana

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 200, August/September 2024.

Bassekou Kouyate & Amy Sacko
Djudjon: L’Oiseau de Garana
One World Records (61 mins)

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba have been the world’s ambassadors for Bamana jeli (griot) ngoni music since their first album in 2007. Now on their sixth, they’ve dropped the band name in favour of further highlighting the wonderful jelimuso (and Bassekou’s wife) Amy Sacko. A slightly strange move, as the band are still here and Amy only sings on half the tracks. But never mind. Djudjon is a tribute to Bassekou’s hometown of Garana, Mali, and it shows the group at their most stripped-back: no ostentatious guest musicians, no effects pedals. It grants the listener space to appreciate the interweaving textures of the ensemble, Amy’s powerful and subtle voice, Bassekou’s nimbly virtuosic ngoni – and his occasional, innovative use of a bottleneck blues slide on his lute. Bassekou and Amy aren’t breaking any particularly new ground as they have done in the past, but this is still a lovely, solid set from the first family of Bamana ngoni.

Temporal Waves - Temporal Waves

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 200, August/September 2024.

Temporal Waves
Temporal Waves
Linear Fade Records / People Places Records (63 mins)

Canadian tabla player Shawn Mativetsky has performed and recorded across many genres for the past 25 years, but this is his first album under his new moniker. Don’t let the percussion fool you – there is little South Asian to Temporal Waves except for some rhythmic phrasing and the occasional tihai. Instead, the tabla is suffused into vast, cinematic synth-futurism with dubtronic and retro video game edges – think Vangelis and Wendy Carlos playing on an Atari in a Whirl-y-Gig chill-out room. It’s all guided by a very strong sense of sci-fi aesthetic, from the hi-tech fantasy forest cover art to the synthscapes that toe the edge between optimistic utopia on one side, and menacing dystopia on the other. Temporal Waves isn’t doing anything particularly new or groundbreaking here, but he does serve up a big dose of nostalgia: the 80s and 90s vibes are real. Stick this on some bassy speakers and have a blast from futures past.

Rəhman Məmmədli - Azerbaijani Gitara, Vol. 2

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 199, July 2024.

Rəhman Məmmədli
Azerbaijani Gitara, Vol. 2
Bongo Joe Records (39 mins)

Bongo Joe Records’ first foray into gitara music from Azerbaijan (the aptly-titled Azerbaijani Gitara by Rüstəm Quliyev, released in 2020) was a revelation. Now we get Vol. 2, this time a compilation of the work of Rəhman Məmmədli… and cor, it’s just as good.

The key ingredient in gitara is the electric guitar – specifically Jolana guitars from Czechoslovakia, which Azeri musicians realised was a perfect fit for creating an exciting modern blend of folk and classical styles, as well as influences from East and West. Məmmədli’s speciality is in pointing gitara towards classical mugham, transforming emotional, solemn art music into a wild rollercoaster of guitar wizardry accompanied by synths, programmed drums and the occasional accordion.

This album’s opener, ‘Qoçəlı̇’, is the perfect example. You get about one second of synth drone to tune in and prepare for what’s coming before Məmmədli comes roaring in, guitar already on full-distortion, creating a beautiful, unmetred improvisation; later, Casio beats and frame drum come in, and it just turns up to the next notch again. Like Quliyev, Məmmədli’s style shows clear influence from the iconic tar in the way he picks the strings and crafts his runs, and in the minute adjustments he makes within each note, bending the strings freely and subtly, gaining access to the most ecstatic of microtones. But what is most astonishing is the sheer vocality that he gets out of his guitar. At times there is an uncanny sense that the sounds he makes are literally that of a master singer, even affecting techniques such as zəngulə, a sort of chromatic yodelling so distinctive of mugham.

The programmed backing tracks and beats sometimes get a bit wearing, but they're never allowed to linger on their own for long before they are inevitably and completely overshadowed by guitar. It’s that good. Two volumes into the Azerbaijani Gitara series, and it’s all gold. I wonder how many more master musicians, how many treasure troves of gitara are still waiting to grace our ears? I can’t wait to hear more.

Avalanche Kaito - Talitakum

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 198, June 2024.

Avalanche Kaito
Talitakum
Glitterbeat Records (42 mins)

Avalanche Kaito’s 2022 self-titled debut was a triumph of noise punk indelibly informed by Mossi griot music from Burkina Faso. Since then, relentless live shows and a slightly reworked line-up (bass replaced by guitar) have evolved the Franco-Belgo-Burkinabé trio’s sound. This time, their music feels a little more considered. It’s just as foreboding, abrasive and hypnotic, but the anarchic chaos that infused their first album is replaced by something more direct and focussed.

Each of the nine tracks on Talitakum has a unique sound that complements the album as a whole - it can go from glitch trap on one track to Tuareg Beefheart punk on the next. It is the attitude that unites them, the complex creativity of three musicians in simpatico, the delicious contrasts of frontman Kaito Winse’s beautiful voice against the harsh discords of distorted guitar and synth, the declamatory tama (talking drum) against the crashing drum kit.

The world of Avalanche Kaito no longer feels like a rattling, angry machine constantly on the verge of losing control, instead like a purposeful, powerful elemental spirit that creates through destruction. That change is for neither better nor worse, but it shows that this is a group that mutate and adapt and grow with experience, and will always have something new to say.

Kolonel Djafaar - Getaway

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 198, June 2024.

Kolonel Djafaar
Getaway
Batov Records (41 mins)

The simplest and most common description of Kolonel Djafaar’s sound is as a meeting of Ethiojazz and Afrobeat. And that’s true: the Ethiopian side is clear in those distinctive pentatonic scales, the Nigerian in the use of the small but meaty horn section (baritone and tenor saxophones, trumpet, occasional trombone), and the rhythms are a tight mix of Yoruba and Afro-Latin styles beloved of Fela and Mulatu, respectively. There’s a lot more to Getaway than that, though. There’s also a potent strain of Anatolian-Levantine psycho-surf, fluttering in through guitar and synth lines, and delving deeper, there’s nods to reggae, Cuban jazz, Baobab-esque West African dance band, and even an unsettling fairground waltz.

Just reading this list of musical ingredients, you might ho-hum. None of these individual fusions are particularly novel or untested; we’ve heard them before. But here they're polished to a cinematic shine, with no element clashing against the rest. It's very tidy, and it’s all neatly encapsulated in the opener, ‘Urban Dweller’ – a great intro to the album, showing off the breadth of the band’s explorations without feeling overloaded. The album ends on a pretty abrupt fade-out, a small disappointment when it feels like the musicians could jam out for much longer.

Sahra Halgan - Hiddo Dhawr

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 197, May 2024.

Sahra Halgan
Hiddo Dhawr
Danaya Music (48 mins)

Sahra Halgan is a hero of Somaliland’s music. At home, in the unrecognised Somali state’s capital Hargeisa, she runs the Hiddo Dhawr (‘promoting culture’) club, the first live music venue since the country declared independence in 1991. Abroad, she is taking Somali music to new places, literally and metaphorically. Her fourth album, also Hiddo Dhawr, is her best so far.

Halgan’s vibrato-heavy voice brings forth songs that speak of love and politics – often simultaneously – wrapped in the proverbs and poetics for which Somalis are so famous. But while Halgan keeps everything rooted in the Somali heritage, her France-based band introduce widespread influences, most notably from the other side of the African continent. Maël Salètes’ guitar and Aymeric Krol’s percussion reflect the sounds of the Songhai and Tuareg of northern Mali. That connection of East and West – a surprising So-Mali-Land fusion – works really well, the two areas united across the Sahara by bluesy pentatonics and laid-back grooves. The quartet is completed by Régis Monte, whose keys consciously echo the classic-era Somali pop of the 70s and 80s, and add some devilishly funky basslines whenever appropriate.

In Hiddo Dhawr, Halgan and her group rollick through up-and-dance tunes and brood over romantic laments – a testament to Somaliland’s distinctive and flexible musical culture and its champion’s forward-thinking and ceaseless advocacy.