tuareg choogle!

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The record that’s been stuck on repeat in this house for the last few days is Group Bombino’s Guitars from Agadez—a “limited one time pressing of 1500 copies” from Sublime Frequencies. Specifically the second side of it, a live recording from Agadez, Niger, made two years ago by Hisham Mayet, who explains in the liner notes that there is one set of amps and PA that every band in Agadez uses (and that “most of the guitarists are still borrowing guitars to play”). The recording is pretty basic, but the guitars sting and grind ceaselessly for the whole side—every track is the band hitting a groove and staying there. Really excellent grooves, too: in my mental triangle, the other two points are Talking Heads’ Fear of Music and Yximalloo’s 1982 live album. I might digitize “Boghassa” (which might be a Tinariwen cover?) for a “Crickets” broadcast on Shouting Fire sometime soon.

In other music news, I reviewed Sparks’ Exotic Creatures of the Deep for PItchfork. I was pretty disappointed by it, I’m afraid.

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This page contains a single entry by Douglas published on January 22, 2009 9:42 PM.

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