Bombino’s Desert Music
Bombinothe desert man of Tuareg ethnicity, released his latest album on September 15 last year “Sahel”in which, once again, he denounced the injustices that torment his homeland. What you can read in the following lines is our review of that album.
We’ve missed them in these five years – that’s how long it’s been since her previous album. “Deran” – the songs of the Niger musician of Tuareg ethnicity Goumar Almoctar known as Bombino. And even more we missed the sound of his talented guitar and the many universes and sound scents born from his land and his experience that he manages to evoke with his favorite instrument. The 43-year-old African musician could not have used a more exemplary title for the new album than “Sahel”. “Sahel” is the name of a vast territory – which in the Seventies we learned to know because of a terrible famine, like only in the black continent – in sub-Saharan Africa that runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and which in Arabic means ‘edge of the desert’.
As in his previous albums, and perhaps even more so here, the desert man Bombino places as the central theme of the songs on “Sahel” the denunciation of the problems, difficulties and suffering that his area of origin and his people, the Tuareg, have been experiencing for time immemorial due to one of the most unstable political situations on the planet, as he heartily declared: “The difficult general situation of the Tuareg is always in my mind and while I have always addressed it in my music, I wanted to pay special attention to this album.
Even though geographically the Sahara Desert is our home, many Tuareg are denied or deprived of some basic necessities throughout the region. This has motivated me a lot. I want people to think about the Tuareg, to represent those people who have not been represented. They really need a voice.”
One gets lost and lets go in the ten songs contained in “Sahel” which are at times hypnotic and captivating (“Tazidert”, “Aitma”, “Darfuq”), at times slower and more sinuous (“Ayo nigla”, “Itisahid”).
Bombino’s blues is sometimes electric, sometimes acoustic, often has elements of pure psychedelia and sometimes has reggae reverberations (“Ayes sachen”). What never fails is the thread of the melody that makes these songs written with the heart and with the aim of keeping attention alive on what is happening in a part of the world forgotten by the societies of what is defined as ‘first world’, but the message can and must be extended to all those peoples who see their rights trampled. The songs proposed by the Nigerian musician have a purpose and are intimately experienced, Bombino aware of possessing talent puts it at the service of his people avoiding the trap of mirroring himself in self-satisfaction by placing the ability with the six strings at the total service of the song. “Sahel” is an excellent album that will not disappoint lovers of ethnic or world sounds, but whose listening is highly recommended without a doubt also to those who frequent other musical shores.
