(2019) Mdou Moctar - Ilana: The Creator
Review:
Mdou Moctar immediately stands out as one of the most innovative artists in contemporary Saharan music. His unconventional interpretations of Tuareg guitar and have pushed him to the forefront of a crowded scene.
…After a chance meeting with engineer Chris Koltay, with whom Moctar bonded over the music of ZZ Top (especially the band’s 1973 album Tres Hombres, with its own repetitive boogie guitar), the two made their way into a Detroit studio, pulled in a live band and made Ilana: The Creator. That band included Ahmoudou Madassane, known his meditative and acid-tinged soundtrack to the Saharan western Zerzura in 2018. With fiery performances, and later overdubs and rhythms recorded in Niger, a modern classic was born. At home, Mdou Moctar is a gifted musician and a performer of wedding music. He writes songs with influences that include diverse influences such as Takamba trance rhythms and the guitar-tapping technique of Eddie Van Halen, as learned from YouTube videos. (And, like Jimi Hendrix, Moctar plays a left-handed Fender Stratocaster guitar.) So feel free to come at Ilana (The Creator) any way you wish, but do it with the volume cranked.Ilana actually begins with “Kamane Tarhanin”, a song that starts out with strings and voices in the distance before the drums kick in. For the rest of the track, Moctar goes all in on energy, lets loose tidal waves of melody… do you see what I’m getting at? There is no shortage right now of proficient Saharan guitarists in the international music market, of course. Bombino springs to mind easily, as do bands like Tinariwen, Tamikrest, Imarhan, and Etran Finatawa. Each artist has a different approach, of course; Tinariwen set a precedent for melancholy blues, while Bombino’s brand of “Tuareggae” sets a brighter tone and Imarhan looks farther north for influences.
History of the Tuareg desert blues phenomenon aside, Mdou Moctar is in a realm of his own. His first commercial album, Anar, came out in 2008, loaded with Auto-Tuned vocals and thin, electronic beats that drew heavily on other styles of music from West Africa. On it, Moctar took a hypermodern approach to Tuareg groove, rooted in the popular dance music of the moment. Since then, his style has grown into something with more lasting appeal. Ilana still sounds fresh and different from anything Moctar’s contemporaries do, but it is wholly based on his considerable skill as a rock guitarist and songwriter rather than on trying to get in on current trends.
Take, for example, track “Tarhatazed”. Seven and a half minutes long, it begins with a fierce guitar solo from Moctar over a background whirlwind of bass and drums. Halfway through is another, and a final short solo finishes the song. The entire piece draws on Moctar’s primary strength as a live performer, both at weddings and on international tours, and is perhaps the best attempt yet at capturing his raw onstage energy. For the first time on a studio album, it feels like we are hearing Mdou Moctar at full capacity, the production clear, minimal, and true to life.
Even at his most low-key, as on instrumental track “Takamba” or mellow closer “Tumastin”, Moctar’s skill stays sharp, his hands constantly moving. On the latter, his syncopated guitar work transforms a hypnotic melody into something more ornate, a breezy end to a whirlwind of an album.
In person, Mdou Moctar is a nonchalant genius, seemingly effortless in the way he sets off sonic fireworks on song after song with the speed of his nimble fingers. On Ilana, his dynamic style at last comes through on a recording. This is a remarkable album, and made even more so by Moctar’s insistence that the concept of rock music as a genre is fairly new to him. What he does is not rock for rock’s sake, but music for music’s, and that might be the most rock and roll approach of all.
Tracklist:
01 - Kamane Tarhanin
02 - Asshet Akal
03 - Inizgam
04 - Anna
05 - Takamba
06 - Tarhatazed
07 - Wiwasharnine
08 - Ilana
09 - Tumastin
Summary:
Country: USA
Genre: psychedelic rock, world
Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : ~ 776-942 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
