Noura Mint Seymali has put out arguably the best psych blues album of 2014. Imagine a modernized, transcendent combination of Umm Kalthum and Captain Beefheart. It's hard not to occasionally think that if her band was NYC-based making limited tape runs, they’d be huge. Noura Mint Seymali, along with her husband, Jeiche Ould Chighaly, whose guitar lines conjure up both Hendrix and Richard Thompson hails from Mauritania (it’s west of Mali and north of Senegal), where they are part of a long line of griot. Griot (or iggawin) is the term for the musician, songwriter, storyteller, and messenger caste in many West African countries. Basically most of the killer music one hears from the region, be it Tinariwen or Youssou N’Dour, are at least tangentially connected to the tradition. Noura’s mother was Mauritania’s singer of her time and Noura’s father wrote the national anthem. There are no music schools in Mauritania so it’s very much a family affair. Essentially, Noura Mint Seymali’s cred is unfuckwithable. Her new record, TZENNI, was partially recorded and partially remixed from earlier recordings at Brooklyn’s Studio G (and engineered by studio owner and former Pere Ubu, Tony Maimone). After years of melding traditional Moorish music with a variety of pop sounds, Noura Mint Seymali has stripped down both the sound and the band. Funk bass (played on an upside down righty by Ousmane Toure’) and drums, psych guitar, and Noura’s incomparable voice; if the themes and initial songs are timeless, the sound is utterly contemporary.
Noura Mint Seymali has put out arguably the best psych blues album of 2014. Imagine a modernized, transcendent combination of Umm Kalthum and Captain Beefheart. It's hard not to occasionally think that if her band was NYC-based making limited tape runs, they’d be huge.
ResponderEliminarNoura Mint Seymali, along with her husband, Jeiche Ould Chighaly, whose guitar lines conjure up both Hendrix and Richard Thompson hails from Mauritania (it’s west of Mali and north of Senegal), where they are part of a long line of griot. Griot (or iggawin) is the term for the musician, songwriter, storyteller, and messenger caste in many West African countries. Basically most of the killer music one hears from the region, be it Tinariwen or Youssou N’Dour, are at least tangentially connected to the tradition. Noura’s mother was Mauritania’s singer of her time and Noura’s father wrote the national anthem. There are no music schools in Mauritania so it’s very much a family affair. Essentially, Noura Mint Seymali’s cred is unfuckwithable.
Her new record, TZENNI, was partially recorded and partially remixed from earlier recordings at Brooklyn’s Studio G (and engineered by studio owner and former Pere Ubu, Tony Maimone). After years of melding traditional Moorish music with a variety of pop sounds, Noura Mint Seymali has stripped down both the sound and the band. Funk bass (played on an upside down righty by Ousmane Toure’) and drums, psych guitar, and Noura’s incomparable voice; if the themes and initial songs are timeless, the sound is utterly contemporary.