#4256, North Africa and the Levant
Hear the desert blues and rock along with roots in North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean with music by Mauritania’s Noura Mint Seymali, Niger’s Mdou Moctar, Tunisia’s Sabry Mosbah, and Sudanese-Italian singer Amira Kheir. Take a musical tour from Morocco and Mauritania, and into the Sahel region of Niger and Northern Mali). Then, continue on through Tunisia, Egypt, and the Levant, culminating with TootArd, a quintet of stateless musicians from occupied Golan Heights between Israel and Syria.
Listen to traditional Tuareg guitar from ‘Prince of the Desert’, Mdou Moctar. It’s shreddy music from his latest record, Ilana, where he turns to folklore for inspiration, as well as the hypnotic music, takamba – popular at festivals and weddings in the North of Mali and Niger.
Also, hear traditional desert rock by the all-male group Terakaft of Northern Mali, along with music by the all-female ensemble of Tartit. Led by the charismatic singer Fadimata Walet Oumar known as “Disco”, Tartit was formed in a refugee camp in Mauritania in the mid- 1990s. The group is four women singers accompanying their vocals with hand claps and body percussion, along with veiled male instrumentalists, adding guitars and trancey stylings to the call-and-response vocals.
Then, from Mauritania, listen to an electrified take on Moorish tradition with hints of psychedelic rock and funk from griot Noura Mint Seymali featuring amplified “modified Moorish guitar”. Seymali comes from local musical royalty, as the stepdaughter of the great singer Dimi Mint Abba and daughter of a composer - Seymali Ould Ahmed Vall, who devised the first system for Moorish melodic notation. There’s also Gnawan trance music from Morocco by Houssam Gania, along with ritualistic trance-like music rooted in North Africa from Tunisian musician Sabry Mosbah, from his record, Mes Racines (My Roots). Listen to the Sudanese-Italian singer Amira Kheir, who marries experimental jazz with bursts of electric desert blues. And much more. - Caryn Havlik
Digging these sounds? Here's an expanded playlist of music from the show:
Program #4256, North Africa and the Levant (First aired 7/15/2019)
ARTIST: Mdou Moctar
WORK: Kamane Tarhanin [2:08]
RECORDING: Ilana The Creator
SOURCE: Sahel Sounds SS=-051
INFO: mdoumoctar.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Terakaft
WORK: Jaguar [4:16]
RECORDING: Jaguar
SOURCE: Phillippe Brix
INFO: terakaftband.com
ARTIST: Tartit
WORK: Afous Dafous (‘Hand In Hand’) [3:12]
RECORDING: Amankor / The Exile
SOURCE: Riverboat Records TUGCD1120
INFO: worldmusic.net
ARTIST: Mdou Moctar
WORK: Kamane Tarhanin [5:08]
RECORDING: Ilana The Creator
SOURCE: Sahel Sounds SS=-051
INFO: mdoumoctar.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Noura Mint Seymali
WORK: Tzenni [5:12]
RECORDING: Tzenni
SOURCE: Glitterbeat GBCD/LP 016
INFO: glitterbeat.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Houssam Gania
WORK: Moulay Lhacham [5:20]
RECORDING: Mosawi Swiri
SOURCE: Hive Mind Records
INFO: houssamgania.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Sabry Mosbah
WORK: Rock Mjarred [6:39]
RECORDING: Mes Racines
SOURCE: Accords Croisés
INFO: accords-croises.com
ARTIST: Amira Kheir
WORK: Manaok (Forbidden) [6:16]
RECORDING: Mystic Dance
SOURCE: Sterns Music
INFO: amirakheir.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Maryam Saleh, Maurice Louca & Tamer Abu Gazaleh
WORK: Nefsif Akli [4:26]
RECORDING: Lekhfa
SOURCE: Mostakell
INFO: mostakell.com/collections
ARTIST: David Byrne & Brian Eno
WORK: The Carrier [4:20]
RECORDING: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
SOURCE: Nonesuch #79894
INFO: nonesuch.com
ARTIST: TootArd
WORK: Laissez Passer [2:37]
RECORDING: Laissez Passer
SOURCE: Glitterbeat Records
INFO: glitterbeat.com
