avec l'aimable autorisation de Laurent, l'auteur de ces quelques mots, qui nous autorise à les diffuser ici : "Le morceau "amghar in" je le trouve assez emblématique. Il condense à lui seul l'âme du disque... Un entre deux (...)  Avec cet héritage, qui est là, très présent, qui porte et qui inspire.  J'aime ce morceau car je sens qu'il a une portée qui dépasse la simple histoire du groupe. On est comme au bord de quelque chose (...) visionnaire. Ça pourrait parler tout autant de notre difficulté à vivre, à accoucher de soi. J'aime cette façon qu'a la guitare solo d'effleurer le morceau, pour ne pas user la beauté et la gravité. Ce morceau est assez bouleversant. Les voix sont remarquables, les guitares aussi. L'entrée de la basse en solo....pur bonheur

OULH N’AHAGGAR
Paroles: Danna Bay & Aneslem El Hassen,
Musique : Bay Danna
Chanté par: Danna Bay et Benkhridla Hachem
Arrangements: Moussa Melloul

Oulh nahagar iharwane ayatma
Swartilla agadam swadegh inna
Iharwane samed astar na anyalla
Oulh n’Ahaggar améra yéré tinossane
Oulh nahagar iharwane ayatma
Oulh n’Ahaggar enta estarha
Tarha douyen imagharen win ibda, waren la ahouskin seled enta
Oulh nahagar iharwane ayatma
Oulh n’Ahaggar eghriwan as tarha
as tarha…. as tarha…. as tarha

LE CŒUR DU HOGGAR
Le cœur de l’Ahaggar est grand mes frères
Tout le monde reconnaît sa grandeur par la grâce de Dieu
Le cœur de l’Ahaggar est ouvert à tous
Le cœur de l’Ahaggar est grand mes frères
Le cœur de l’Ahaggar est amour
Nos ancêtres nous ont laissé cet amour, notre plus beau trésor
Le cœur de l’Ahaggar est grand mes frères
Le cœur de l’Ahaggar appelle le monde à l’amour
à l’amour…. à l’amour….. à l’amour

Oulh N'Ahaggar par Danna Bay - Groupe IMZAD

Riverboat Records: Celebrating 25 years of making music from around the world

For more information, visit: http://www.worldmusic.net/store/item/TUG1082/

Riverboat Records celebrates it twenty-fifth year in 2014. Since its founding in 1989, the independent label has supported creative new music from far-flung corners of the globe.
This limited edition compendium offers a taste of the excellently eclectic Riverboat sounds from across the years.

Music From The Source includes music from thirty-three bands spanning across two bumper discs. Spotlighted artists include Greek folk duo Kristi Stassinopoulou & Stathis Kalyviotis who kick off proceedings with a track from their album Greekadelia which reached number one in the World Music Charts Europe. Monoswezi’s haunting minimalist sound fuses the music of Mozambique, Norway, Sweden and Zimbabwe together in seamless interplay. Indian slide-guitar maestro Debashish Bhattacharya expands his otherworldly sound Beyond The Ragasphere on virtuosic yet quirky track ‘Indospaniola’. Jaipur Kawa Brass Band’s bombastic party music presents an infectious exploration of Indian military music spun together with refigured Bollywood classics.  Lesotho-based ‘junk funk’ renegades Sotho Sounds craft their own instruments as heard on ‘Ba Ea Bojoa (Part 1)’.

Lala Njava’s offering is a Malagasy marvel featuring her silvery wandering voice, lush rolling guitars and rippling percussion. Nigerien nomad bluesmen Etran Finatawa contribute their Wodaabe-Tuareg musical melt. Shiyani Ngcobo acoustic guitar picking illuminates his mastery of the wonderful Zulu maskanda dance style. Boris Kovač & La Campanella’s melody ‘Pearl’ aches with their distinctly Balkan nuance. Klezmer troubadours She’Koyokh spoon out their re-imagined Eastern European folk on ‘Esmera Min’. 

Kardemimmit’s song ‘Ahven (Perch)’ is played by the fresh folksy kantele quartet from Finland. Cuban son band Sierra Maestra deliver their personal account of the nation’s infamous enveloping dance style. Koo Nimo’s lilting palm-wine music flies the flag for Ghana and village ensemble Wayo summon the ancient polyrhythms of Africa’s newest nation, South Sudan. Yunnanese ‘Mountain Men’ Shanren close the set with ‘Drinking Song’ from their new album, which has the UK media hailing them as ‘Chinese folk-rockers to watch’ (The Guardian).

Riverboat Records would like to take this opportunity to wholeheartedly thank our supporters. Music From The Source is not only a resplendent retrospective but also highlights the breadth of talented artists that have been given an international platform thanks to Riverboat Record’s ongoing work since 1989.


Samba Touré: Alabina (taken from Music From The Source)

IMUHAR

(Omar Moctar)
Matinfa tenassé in mouhague tigrawe tickma
Matinfa tinassé in mouhague tigrawe tickma
Ayitma yofa nikare nigrassidane yalla yicknane
Matinfa tenéssé n’mouhar tigrawe tickma
Imuhar tigrawe tickma n’taguilwene ahische rawane
Matinfa ténéssé n’mouhar tigrawe tickma
What good is calm to the Imuhar(1)
who are living in misery? 
In misfortune? 
My brothers, we must awake and understand that we have
gained nothing
What good is calm to the Imuhar living in misery?
In misfortune? 
The lives of the Imuhar are complicated, it is the way these
times are
What use is calm to the Imuhar living in misery? 
In misfortune?

Imuhar - Bambino

[Madagascar] [Mali] [Marruecos] Rajery, Ballaké Sissoko & Driss El Maloumi - 3 MA (2008)

Rajery, Ballaké Sissoko & Driss El Maloumi - Anfass

Majid Bekkas , Joachim Kuhn et Ramon Lopez

Dans ce titre aux sonorités empreintes de nostalgie, il est question de manque et d'inquiétude. 
Le manque du père, mais aussi des pères au sens large, de ce qu'il peuvent nous enseigner, de la sécurité perdue quand ils ne sont plus là ...
Le manque du pays quand on est loin, le manque de ceux qu'on a laissés, le respect que l'on donne justement à ceux qui sont restés...
L'inquiétude pour sa culture, le besoin qu'il y a de la protéger, ici et là bas..

AMGHAR IN (de l'album Amghar in)

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s Tinariwen who created the path,” declares Ousmane Ag Mossa, frizzy-locked leader of Tamikrest, in a pre-emptive strike against a thousand inevitable questions. “But the way I see it, if younger bands don’t come through, then Touareg music will eventually die. They created the path and now it’s up to us to walk down it and create the future.”

Ousmane was born twenty-seven years ago in a village called Tin-Zaouaten, a solitary speck squeezed up against Mali’s northeastern border with Algeria. It’s a remote marginal place. Or to put it another way: there’s distant, there’s remote and beyond both of those there’s Tin-Zaouaten. 

To an outsider, the village would appear to be nothing more than a motley collection of one storey adobe and breeze-block houses, huddling together for protection against the burning sun, the black rocky hills and the lonely immensity of the surrounding desert. But to Ousmane, it’s home. 

Like its ‘neighbour’ Tessalit, two hundred and fifty kilometres to the west, Tin-Zaouaten is blessed with a water table that lurks benignly just below the surface of the gritty soil. Dig a few metres and you can usually find water in abundance. That’s why Tin-Zaouaten, or ‘Tinza’ for short, is famed in the desert for its gardens and garden produce. Ousmane’s father Mossa was born a nomad out in the bush, but by the time Ousmane arrived he had settled in Tinza, making a living from growing onions, beetroot, carrots and dates, and selling them in the local markets.

In 1985 drought shook desert life to its core. The rains had failed for several seasons and the village was haunted by famine. “I was born in a time of calamity,” says Ousmane. “In the middle of dreadful events for the Touareg people. My parents knew so much hardship. Then when I was five years old the rebellion broke out. It was 1990, the year of war. I was a child, and I used to hide in amongst the rocks with the other women and children, just a few kilometres north of the village over the Algerian border. When I think of that time, it’s as if it’s all still happening in front of me.”

Thus Ousmane’s childhood was buffeted by the searing winds of recent Touareg history. The droughts of ‘68 to ’74 almost destroyed the animal herds and with them the ancient nomadic way of life of the Touareg. The drought of ’84 to ’85 almost dealt the final blow. Thousands of young men fled into exile in Algeria, Libya, Burkina Faso and beyond. That’s where the modern Touareg guitar style of music was born and then nourished by anger, homesickness, frustration and dreams of a better life. It was this generation of Touareg men, known as the ishumar, who returned to Mali and Niger in 1990 to rebel against the callousness, corruption and arrogance of the governments in the distant capitals of Bamako and Niamey. 

At first Ousmane just listened to traditional Touareg music at home, and the newer guitar music on battered old cassettes. “I well remember hearing my first Tinariwen songs. I was about five. After the death of my mother, my father was obliged to take me to live with my grown-up sister. One morning I was sitting in front of the house and this guy walked by singing a song by Inteyeden called ‘Imidiwan Kel Hoggar’ (‘My Friends the Hoggar People’). It went straight into my brain…ha ha ha.”

A few years later Ousmane began to play the guitar himself, and write songs. He was attending a school in Tinza called Les Enfants de l’Adrar, set up by a French NGO and a local man turned community leader called Hama Ag Sid Ahmed. At the end of every school year the children would create and perform musical plays about pressing themes like ignorance, drought, education and culture. 

Hama bought the school an acoustic guitar, and Ousmane adopted the instrument. With his constant friend Cheikh Ag Tiglia, he would write songs and perform them at the school shows. He learned the Tamashek guitar style by listening to a particular cassette which Tinariwen’s leader Ibrahim ‘Abaraybone’ had recorded in Algeria back in 1998. 

In 2002, events once again undermined the tenuous calm and stability in Tinza. The village was home to one of the southern desert’s most infamous freedom fighters and warlords, Ibrahim Ag Bahanga. For this reason it became a military no-go zone. Ousmane’s father left to live with his eldest sons in Libya, and both Ousmane and Cheikh went south to Kidal

Kidal is the capital of the far north east of Mali, a region known as the Adagh des Iforas (‘The Mountains of the clan Iforas’). With its wide sandy streets and dispersed one storey earthen houses, Kidal has the feel of a frontier town. For the Adagh Touareg, it’s where it all happens. 

Ousmane and Cheikh played the guitar and sang in hidden corners of Kidal, around a fire, drinking bittersweet Touareg tea with their friends. Their reputations grew very slowly, steadily, without wild leaps or fanfares. After a while they heard that a local cultural centre called the DDRK or ‘Maison du Luxembourg’, founded by the Duchess of Luxembourg who had fallen in love with the town when she visited it in 2001, was offering music classes. The teacher turned out to be Juhan Ecaré, a musician from Ivory Coast. 

Then this French theatre troupe called La Calma arrived in town and enrolled over fifty young people to perform a massive theatre piece featuring sketches about a host of local issues. It went down a storm in January 2006 at a local festival called ‘The Saharan Nights of Essouk’. Although Ousmane didn’t take part in the project, claiming disinterest in theatre (“I’m a musician…theatre’s not my thing”), Cheikh went along and played with a local percussionist called Aghaly Ag Mohammedine and a bass player called Ibrahim Ahmed, aka ‘Pinnochio’ or ‘Pino’ for short. 

On their return, Pino proposed that they form a proper band and record a demo at a small studio, which had been set up at the Maison du Luxembourg. They also decided that they needed a name, and agreed on ‘Tamikrest’, which means the knot, the junction, the coalition, in Tamashek, the language of Touareg. “Each of us came from a different place, a different zone,” explains Ousmane. “Cheikh and I from Tinza. Aghaly and Mossa Maiga from Kidal. Pino from Gao. But we found each other and we had the same ideas, the same intentions. We were like a coalition.”

On the 23rd May 2006, the army garrison in Kidal was attacked by a new Touareg rebel movement called the Alliance Démocratique pour le Changement (ADC). “It was a hard time for me,” remembers Ousmane. “I woke up early that morning and discovered that the town had turned into a nightmare. Those who wanted to join the rebels had already done so. But, in general, that wasn’t the choice of me and my friends. Because we’d never been in the army. We were musicians, not people who carry arms.”

By the end of the year a fragile peace had been restored, although Tinza’s recalcitrant son Ibrahim Ag Bahanga refused to compromise and remained on the run with his own splinter militia. Tamikrest performed at the peace Forum in March 2007, when the Touareg rebels met with the Malian government and thousands of community representatives in Kidal to map out a way forward. 

The group were developing their style and their fan base, which consisted mainly of Kidal’s younger generation. They knew the Tamashek guitar style intimately, but they were also deeply into rap, metal, Maghrebi pop and afro-disco music from Ivory Coast. They had new tastes, new desires, new ambitions and Tamikrest was their band. 

Pino was quite a mover and shaker. In late 2007 he contacted Manny Ansar, the director of the now world-famous Festival in the Desert and clinched a gig for Tamikrest. The band found the money to transport themselves the 600 miles eastward to Timbuktu. In the silky dunes of Essakane they met Dirtmusic, a group of rock’n’roll veterans from the USA and Australia. It was one of those meetings fashioned by fate in the workshops of destiny. 

Chris Eckman of Dirtmusic remembers the meeting thus: “On our first morning in Essakane we woke up hearing music, so we went across the sand to the tent opposite ours and that’s where Tamikrest was playing. Chris Brokaw grabbed his dobro and headed over, then Hugo and I eventually did the same and basically for three days we didn’t leave.”

Once again music overflew all barriers of language, culture, style, shyness and reticence. The friendship formed at Essakane grew in the following months and lead to an invitation by Dirtmusic to come to the Malian capital Bamako to make an album, and contribute to Dirtmusic’s own oeuvre. After another epic journey of 1,200 miles, by car and bus, Ousmane, Aghaly and crew entered their first professional studio and ‘Adagh’ was born.

“It felt very natural to play with Dirtmusic,” asserts Ousmane. “I’ve always appreciated all kinds of different music and it was such a pleasure to play with a different kind of band. Music isn’t something you study; it’s something you learn with your ears. I’d been listening and playing along to Bob Marley, to Marc Knopfler and Dire Straits, to Tinariwen for years. We’d been listening to so much international music and that’s why the marriage with Dirtmusic worked.”

The end of 2009 finds Tamikrest on the cusp of the world and the next chapter in their great adventure. “This opportunity to go to Europe feels like a big responsibility,” says Ousmane. “I feel like someone who’s done this exam and is now waiting for the result. We’ve already achieved quite a bit, but the hardest is still ahead.”

One thing is certain: Ousmane is clear about the band’s mission. “The situation of the Touareg is very difficult right now,” he declares. “Even before I played the guitar and started recording, I had this ambition to be a lawyer or you might say, an ‘advocate’. I wanted to be capable of expressing the hurt I felt in my heart, and speak out about the situation, even at the United Nations. Because we’re a people who don’t have journalists, we don’t have advocates. But it was only later that I realised that a musician can play that role.”

“What is the weakest part of any nation or people? It’s ignorance. We are stuck in our ignorance. I see the world changing, racing ahead, and leaving us behind. And the only thing that is holding us back is our ignorance. As artists, it’s our duty to make our problems known to the world, to sing songs about the nomadic life, about our traditions and culture. But above all, revolutionary songs, about what we see, about what the government is doing to our people, which makes no sense to me.”

There it is…Tamikrest, the knot, the coalition, the future. 


Tamikrest - Aratane N'adagh

Terakaft 2012

SOOF - By Gil Ron Shama :

Africa is a mystical land with an innate rhythm and diverse population. The sounds and songs that echo in the heart of the people tell stories of both happiness and despair. Like all continents ravaged by war, Africa too, needs the song of Unity. This strong symbolic word is at the heart of the Soof Project; a project that brings people together using the diverse nature of music from across the continent. 

The SOOF project is a multidimensional creation, with both an artistic and an educational approach, offering musical masterpieces, a photography art exhibition, video-art , educational children's books and more. 

Wandering through Mali, Senegal, Morocco and the Sahara Desert, the Soof team visited remote areas and big cities (Bamako, Timbuktu, Dakar) recording the sounds and sites of the people and environment they encountered. Bringing the message of peace and unity to the people of the land. 

Touareg

Vieux Farka Touré's beautiful latest album was recorded as an homage to his homeland.  Being that his native Mali has been splintered by territorial fighting between Tuareg and Islamic rebels since January 2012, his new album, Mon Pays, is devoted to reminding the world about the beauty and culture of his homeland.
 
‘For me it is a statement for the world that this land is for the sons and daughters of Mali, not for Al Qaeda or any militants. This land is for peace and beauty, rich culture and tolerance.This is our heritage, what we must always fight to protect in any way that we can. For me, that means making music that reminds the world of who we are.’
 
Translating as ‘My Nation,’ this predominantly acoustic undertaking had been planned before the invasions began. Inspired by his work with Israeli pianist and vocalist Idan Raichel, Touré initially went into a Bamako studio to honor the acoustic blues tradition of Northern and Southern Mali. Since that time, Mon Pays transformed into an artifact of cultural preservation.

Two songs on the project -Future’ and ‘Peace’ feature Sidiki Diabate’s kora leading an emotional charge complemented by Touré’s spectacular guitar work. Both tracks represent an important generational "passing of the torch" as Sidiki’s father, Toumani is considered one of the greatest living kora masters and was a close friend of Vieux’s father Ali. Their two records together, In the Heart of the Moon and Ali and Toumani, were awarded Grammies. At the 2011 ceremonies, Vieux accepted the prestigious award for his father, who had recently passed from bone cancer.

Mon Pays is the most mature and lovely record yet from one of this generation's most exciting artists to come out of Mali and one of world music's true rising stars.


10 Vieux Farka Toure-Ay Bakoy

The Sahara Sessions was recorded deep in the desert. Sheltered only by an animal-skin tent and the vast canopy of midnight stars, Etran Finatawa played their guitars and sang straight from the heart. Each poignant song and every slap of the calabash drum articulating the deep-set divisions in the Sahel region that are threatening their Nomad way of life.

Read More/Buy Album: www.worldmusic.net/saharasessions

Simmering political troubles and excruciating economic hardship pose a dangerous threat to the nomadic way of life and the rich cultures of Niger. Divining their solution to these issues, Etran Finatawa celebrate their diverse heritage and call for its preservation to be a priority for Nigeriens and listeners the world over.

The Sahara Sessions opens with ‘Matinfa’, a gently rippling introduction peppered with traditional percussion; tendé, calabash and azakalabó (a calabash drum that floats in water) drums are all heard. The song title translates as ‘What Is This For?’ and is the first signifier of the album’s intent to comment on the tumultuous status of the Sahel region today. Although Niger has displayed a firm opposition to separatism that plagued neighbouring country Mali in 2012, the troubles have inevitably caused insecurity in the Sahel region and the threat to the countries rich and varied cultures is a very real concern. Etran Finatawa’s members are of Tuareg and Wodaabe heritages – neighboring tribes that both live as nomads. Water shortages and land disputes have led to deep-set economic issues that cause conflict and misunderstanding across communities. The work Etran Finatawa do to promote unity and understanding is invaluable. 

The album presents a collection of tracks: some fixed compositions developed and created by the band and others spontaneous improvisations that capture the spirit of the tent recordings.  Songs such as ‘An Mataf Germanawen’ (Union) and ‘Issuad’ (Let’s Come Together) patiently call for attention to be paid to the political situation.

Various guests also join then band on the album – arrangements that occurred organically and were spontaneously initiated. One of these, a Tuareg percussionist by the name of Ayouba arrived at the camp one night, revving out of the darkness on his motorbike. Before long Ayouba had set up his calabash drum and was spreading his contagious high-energy vibe like wildfire. His articulations can be heard on the three tracks ‘Matinfa’,  ‘Icheraid Azaman’ and ‘Toumast’. ‘Wa Oyan A Wa Imouss I Bastila’ is an excerpt from an improvisation with Abdourahaman Ag Ibrahim, a well-known local griot (praise-singer and oral historian), who came to visit the tent where Etran Finatawa were recording.

Etran Finatawa are as captivating as the horizon-stretching desert where the pitched their tent to record. Like the desert their music stretches out across the sands of time and culture.


AMGHAR IN (de l'album Amghar in)

NABIL BALY

Recent comments

Botmane

9yx.me_

NABIL BALY

Related tracks