The Rough Guide To The Music Of The Sahara

San Francisco, California, USA – Traveling across Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Western Sahara, The Rough Guide To The Music Of The Sahara (RGNET1153CD) encompasses the hauntingly beautiful and dramatically different sounds of the desert. Compiled by Saharan music expert Andy Morgan, this album features driving desert rock and roll, Moorish traditions and remarkable guitar music.

Including the magnificent desert blues of BBC award-winners Tinariwen and the funky traditional sound of Kel Tin Lokiene among other outstanding performers, this album celebrates the diversity of Saharan musical culture. Since the first Festival in the Desert in 2001, Tinariwen have toured the globe and the outside world has woken up to their searing skeletal brand of desert blues. From a region known as the Adrar des Iforas, in the northeastern corner of Mali, Tinariwen were the ‘pied pipers’ of the so-called ishumaren movement in the early 1990s, which returned from exile in Algeria and Libya to launch a rebellion. ‘Alkhar Dessouf is a irresistibly moody song about love and nostalgia.

Led by the charismatic Fadimata ‘Disco’ Walett Oumar, Tartit Ensemble are Tuaregs from the Kel Antessar tribe that has held sway in the deserts around Timbuktu for centuries. During the Tuareg rebellion of the early 1990s, thousands escaped into refugee camps in Mauritania, where Tartit was formed. Tartit have since toured Europe and become the world’s most famous ambassadors of traditional Tuareg music. Comprising mostly of women, the group also includes a few men, such as the singer Mohamed Ag Abada, who performs with haunting effect on ‘Ikruhuwaten’.

One of Mauritania’s most remarkable up-and-coming young stars, Malouma has forged a name for herself as an innovative bandleader and an outspoken female voice. Mixing jazz, blues, rock and soul, with the wildest Mauritanian sounds, she creates a stunningly original new mix. ‘Jraad’ is from her second album, Dunya, which was recorded in the capital Nouakchott and released to global acclaim in 2003.

From Erfoud, the capital of the Tafilalet (in the far northwest of the Sahara), Compagnie Jellouli & Gdih play a style of music known as al baldi, in which the elegance of Andalusian melodies is coupled with the blazing intensity of Berber music from the Atlas and the harrowing lyricism of popular malhoun poetry.

Hasna El Becharia lives in Bechar, a dust-blown town on the northern edge of the Sahara. Doyenne of the diwan style (North African music focusing around the songs, rhythms and melodies of black African slaves and migrants), queen of the vibrant local wedding-music scene, virtuoso of various Afro-Maghrebi instruments, the jaunty tune ‘Hakmet Lakdar’ sums up her Afro-Berber-Arabic heritage very well.

Sahraoui Bachir is one of the leading cheikhs (improvising male poets and singers) of sahrawi music – a Berber music of the northern desert fringes in Algeria. His vocal style is stark and powerful; it is a sound that sums up the Sahara, in all its fearful, harsh, yet seductive beauty.

The Timbuktu region is a trove of musical treasures and over the years it has thrown up many Songhai musicians of international report. The young Songhai singer Seckou Maiga is a local musical hero who has established himself as a serious contender and ‘Malta Sibori’ is the title track from his 2002 album.

Another group from the area are Kel Tin Lokiene, led by Hami Ag Akreirou. The members of this fifteen-strong troupe delve deep into the funky yet diamond-hard heart of traditional Tuareg music and their subject matter is often dominated by tales of old heroes and warriors.

Agadez in northern Niger rivals Timbuktu in terms of historical and political importance and Groupe Oyiwane is a local group that has existed for two decades. Led by Balla ‘Ban-no’ Kader, their music is based on the traditional rhythm of the tinde drum, which is itself based on the loping gait of the camel.

This album also includes Arab-flavored melodies from the powerful and youthful group Chet Fewet and music from the leading lights of the Saharawi movement (the Saharawi people are from the vast deserts that line the Atlantic coast south of Morocco), Aziza Brahim, Nayim Alal and Mariem Hassan.

Buy The Rough Guide to the Music of the Sahara.