Africa is a victim of so many crimes

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Top 50 Albums of 2021

#10 : Afrique Victime - Mdou Moctar

In Mdou Moctar’s world, riff and rhythm count but the solo is king. His grounding in the nomadic Tuareg style of assouf (desert blues) made him a popular option on Niger’s wedding circuit, but the guitarist breaks from convention by always doggedly following his fingertips to some place new. A decade’s worth of refinement has led to Afrique Victime, which streamlines the hooky onslaught of Moctar’s 2019 breakout LP, Ilana: The Creator, into something more well-rounded. Bassist and producer Mikey Coltun’s sequencing affords breathers between levee-breakers, giving necessary hush to introspective ballads Bismilahi Atagah and Tala Tannam, while allowing the molten psychedelia of Taliat and Asdikte Akal to sprawl. True to the music’s Saharan origins, there’s ample space here. Sometimes Mdou’s voice is barely above a whisper before the band join him in skyward invocations.

In a change of style to prolong the agony, we're down to just the one album today - and dialling up my cultural simplifications to the max, it was not an album I was expecting to enjoy.  I just don't like African music, I'm afraid.  But - what's this?  I actually didn't mind it all - and there's nothing really there that I can say "well, it's not all the other African music because of <X>".  With the exception of the guitar solos, which are impressive but often feel a bit out of place.  I think The Guardian gets it with "hooky" - but there's been plenty of other stuff I've listened to which has similar hooks and I just find it dull.  So maybe I'm just getting more reasonable given my advancing years.  Hmmm, no that doesn't feel likely.

If I had to pick a reason, I think I'd guess that there are more musical influences on display here than I usually pick up when listening to African music - some of it sounds quite Indian and some of it quite eastern European as well.  There are also echoes of people like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin when they were looking further afield for musical inspiration - and I'm definitely not claiming they invented any of this, but I just recognise it from there.  I particularly liked the title track - it's a real musical melting pot and manages to include a lot in its 7:25.

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album, but it taught me the name of new language - Tamasheq, which most of the album is sung in (it's a Malian variety of Tuareg, which is obviuosly a Berber macro-language).  Apart from that, I can tell you the album has been released, was well received critically and made the top 100 in The Netherlands (#92).  

"Customers also listened to" - is there any point to even trying?  Actually, I have heard of Cassandra Jenkins, black midi and St Vincent, but I'm struggling to see a huge connection between them and this.  I think it extremely unlikely I'll ever listen to this again, but I have to admit I found it surprisingly enjoyable and there's a lot of stuff in there, so thank you Mdou for an interesting (and unexpected) experience.

#12/11 - Bags of attitude on display here
#9 - A re-listen turned up absolutely nothing new