First Listen: Bombino, ‘Agadez’ : NPR-Aka The Tuareg Blues
I caught this on the way to work today. A cross continental guitar master plays for us all. This is the very opposite of the bigotry we see from Atlas Shrugged etc. This man has blended his culture and blues in such a way… Making it very difficult to have any reaction but respect for him and his skill.
The Tuareg people of Saharan Africa have a fine music scene on their hands. In the years since these desert nomads picked up the electric guitar in the early 1980s, rebellious guitarists have given birth to what the West has come to call desert blues: an ultra-repetitive, almost meditative facsimile of psychedelic rock.
Omara “Bombino” Moctar, a 31-year-old guitarist from Niger, is the latest Tuareg phenomenon to graduate from local cassettes to internationally available CDs. His first album on an American record label, 2009’s excellent Guitars From Agadez, Vol. 2, was patched together from performances recorded live in the desert. It was one of the finest albums of any kind released that year, but you couldn’t help wondering what it would sound like if these extraordinary musicians were given a chance to ply their trade in an actual studio.
Those questions have been answered with Agadez, Bombino’s entrancing new album, out April 19. American filmmaker Ron Wyman encountered Bombino while traveling near Agadez, a Tuareg metropolis in northern Niger. Wyman says he was blown away by the cassettes he heard and asked Bombino to come to Cambridge, Mass., to record at his home studio. They later finished the album in Niger.
links to the music
spotify:track:2IlsNvcFLXuV1VbZ3OlevV
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