Review in Pasatiempo: Santa Fe, New Mexico's Weekly Magazine VARIOUS ARTISTS "Folk Music of the Sahel 1: Niger" (Sublime Frequencies)

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Review in Pasatiempo: Santa Fe, New Mexico's Weekly Magazine
VARIOUS ARTISTS "Folk Music of the Sahel 1: Niger" 

(Sublime Frequencies)

With his world-music label Sublime Frequencies, Hisham Mayet has become something of a cross between Alan Lomax and Anthony Bourdain, traveling to war-torn landscapes to record popular and ritual music in Africa and the Middle East. In the process, he exposes the musicians he encounters to wider audiences in Europe and North America. For the debut of his ambitious new project — a planned six-volume series surveying the musical landscape of Niger’s Sahel region, famed for its mix of nomadic animist and Afro-Islamic cultures — Mayet has released a trove of field recordings he collected over the past decade. The album includes live recordings of griots, or praise singers, whose improvised, hand-percussion-backed performances blend storytelling, gossip, and commentary on local events. An astonishing cut from Koudede, a popular Tuareg guitarist killed last year in a car accident, showcases his haunting, Arabic-infused, bluesy songs that made him a local hero. Songs to back the courtship dances of the Wodaabe tribe as well as several call-and-response choruses, syncopated to oil-can drums, round out this collection.

- Casey Sanchez