You Had Me At Tuareg Guitar: 2019 Albums From Mdou Moctar and Tinariwen
Sometimes known as “Desert Blues.”
Sometimes known as “Saharan Rock.”
Sometimes known as “Tuareg Guitar.”
Whatever you call it, there is a style of music closely associated with the Tuareg people (Kel Tamashek) and the geography of the Western Sahara desert, from Morocco extending to Mali. Steeped in its stark, unforgiving geography, and a political climate to match, the music is a derivative of blues rock and relies on open tunings and repetitive, droning, of patterns played over skittering percussion often creating an effect that many might equate with psychedelic rock. Many of the lyrics are centuries old poems and stories passed down from one generation to another. It is often highly political and is always rooted in its time, place, and people. The Tuareg people are one of the largest confederations of African Berbers and have often had to fight for their own survival and identity, whether against French colonialists, or the Malian, or Nigerian governments.
Cooked up in the sunbaked desert and under breathing the air of political struggle, “Desert Blues” often reflects the shimmery simmer of the desert heat; the very fight just to survive somewhere that seems to be actively working against you being there in the first place, which of course extends to the political struggles endured by these resilient people. The Blues isn’t just about being Blue, it’s about the fight to keep on living despite what life may bring. Often reflecting the nomadic nature of its creators, Desert Blues can be both transcendent and imminently urgent; joyous and defiant all at once. You have to live where you find yourself, even if you know you’ll be moving along soon. The fantastic label Sahel Sounds (home to Mdou Moctar) describes the music as:
“Tuareg guitar has become one of the most popular folk music in the contemporary Sahara. Originally political ballads, created in exile in Libya, today the sound has expanded to encompass everything from introspective love songs, blistering psychedelic rock, and synthesizer and drum machine. At its core, the music still relies on poetry to transmit a message, carried by the pentatonic solos of a guitar.”
The music has gained popularity over the years, in large part riding the visibility of artists like Bombino, Tinariwen, and now Mdou Moctar. Both Moctar and Tinariwen released fantastic albums in 2019 that deserve to be listened to, not just heard.
In fact, Mdou Moctar released two albums this year. The first, was released to less fanfare and has largely flown under the radar, but in January, 2019, Jack White’s Third Man Records released Moctar’s ‘Blue Stage Session,’ a live album recorded in 2018 at Third Man Cass Corridor in Detroit.
This live set preceded Moctar’s proper studio debut, ‘Ilana (The Creator)’ which appeared three months later, in March, 2019, but the ‘Blue Stage Session’ is no less important, featuring several tracks that didn’t make it on to the later studio album, including opener ‘Tarha,’ which explodes with repeated psychedelic swirls and pounding percussion, displaying that this Moctar is not just a studio musician but a live force to be reckoned with. Much has been made about Moctar’s backstory which bears repeating if you haven’t already heard it: Moctar was raised in a strictly religious home where music was forbidden. But, much like the little boy in Coco, Moctar would not be deterred, fashioning a clandestine guitar for himself out of a piece of wood strung with brake wires from an old bicycle. He practiced in secret for hours and is a self-taught guitarist of the highest caliber.
That determination and zeal is woven throughout this live performance. This is someone who is playing because he has to. There is an urgency to the music and reminds us all of the importance music can play. It can help us rise above our circumstances while also preserving the story of the struggle to be heard. Moctar combines traditional blues with Saharan tunings and charges at the listener with guitar shreddery that doesn’t shred just to show off but because it’s in his soul.
The live ‘Blue Stage Session’ release was followed in March 2019 by Moctar’s full-band studio debut ‘Ilana (The Creator).’ The studio album succeeds in large part because it is able to capture that sense of joyous urgency made apparent in the live set. Lots of bands are great live but struggle in the studio, or vice versa, but Moctar shows that, despite his self-taught nature (or maybe because of it?), he is adept at both.
Some of the songs have a slightly slower tempo which does not hinder from the music’s urgency but does allow for the guitar playing to shine through as the real star. Moctar’s repeated patterns draw you in with their drone-like qualities, but it’s also clear that this music shares a lineage with the choogle-boogie of John Lee Hooker, early ZZ Top, and others. The studio allows the songs room to breathe while also retaining their spontaneity (the album was largely recorded live in the studio). Recorded in Detroit at the tail-end of touring, the band was cohesive and tight yet the compositions don’t lose any of their spaciousness or immediacy. The added production of the studio is minimal and the tracks were then taken back to Niger for final production.
While Moctar’s music draws focuses a self-taught guitarist, Tinariwen is a Desert Blues collective. The same swirling, insistent guitars and driving percussion are present, but the focus is never on a single player. Watch a short documentary about the band and the new album here.
Tinariwen was was formed in 1979 in Algeria, but returned to their native in the 1990’s after a cease-fire. Perhaps more than anyone else (possibly with the exception of Bombino?) Tinariwen have been at the forefront of bringing Tuareg guitar to the world’s attention. The group has done this by relentless touring including Denmark’s Roskilde Festival and high-profile fans including NPR and others.
Tinariwen has also held closely to a collaborative approach throughout its history, not just within the group but drawing from outside as well. On ‘Amadjar’ Tinariwen’s ninth album, collaborators appear on many of the tracks. For example, five tracks here feature Warren Ellis of The Dirty Three and Bad Seeds fame and there are other notable collaborators including Willie Nelson’s son Micah on ‘Taqkal Tarha’ and Cass McCombs on closing track ‘Lalla’. The band recorded these tracks in the camper-van turned studio in Southern Morocco (watch the video featured here).
The tempos are often slower than Moctar’s but the music is no less insistent, driving, or mesmerizing, swirling in and out of complex patterns forming a droning effect that rises like the desert shimmer but, like the desert, doesn’t want you staying in one place for too long. This is music shaped by and for life’s journey, as difficult as it often is. This shimmering swirl lays the perfect foundation for someone like Ellis, who's violin punctuations serve as a counterpoint for the electrifying solos of a songs like the album’s second track ‘Zawal.” The vocals throughout the album are often presented in a call and response pattern which draws the listener in to a collaborative experience evoking the desert haze and the joyful fierceness of living. Noura Mint Seymali’s vocals soar above ‘Amalouna’ but never leave us below. We hear in the choir-response and we feel her short but piercing vocal solo. The danger with bringing in collaborators is that a group might lose their own sense of identity, but ‘Amadjar’ finds Tinariwen bringing their collaborators along for the journey rather than finding themselves drowned out. This is, without a doubt, a Tinariwen record and it is a very good one.
The album’s acoustic guitars, violin and even mandolin remind us of the folk/rural nature of the music’s origins, but it is always insistent music, perhaps because of the nomadic nature of its creators; it is driven by urgent percussion, even when the vocals feel calm, even joyous. It is this struggle between transcendence and imminence, between the journey to wherever is next and finding one’s self on that journey that has always been at the heart of Tinariwen’s music and ‘Amadjar’ finds the band, perhaps content with the journey, but not standing still by any means.