Agail Ag Amoumine's album Takamba on Sahel Sounds & Mississippi/Change records marks a fine beginning to a new year. Amoumine's electric folk is something of a transcendent process that is one part songcraft, two parts technical prowess, & one part showmanship and a deserved one at that. When considering the music which has been pouring out of Africa, particularly the West and North, the past few years contributing to countless compilations & reissues that have spread like wildflowers/fires. Add to this the increasingly larger group of fantastic contemporary musicians and bands that have been releasing and playing music on these shores, most notably including Tinariwen who have toured with the Rolling Stones.
Takamba is Agail Ag Amoumine's first album issued in this part of the globe. The recordings are an immediately awe inspiring form of rough & raw folk music. Amoumine's buzzing tehardent, a lute-like variant, is the driving force here some slight vocal and percussive additions here and there always reminding of the musics social context, that is to my and I believe many of it's english speaking listeners ears will be at once familiar in intent while obscured in meaning.
Even so the album finds traits of familiarity to those already exposed to the music of the region, most notably Group Doueh & to a lesser extent Group Inerane. Both of these groups release their music in the United States through Sublime Frequencies. Fans of the afore mentioned groups will find much to love in this release while finding it's own eccentricities.
Agail Ag Amoumine's Takamba is available now on LP and mp3 via Sahel Sounds & Mississippi/Change records.
