Les Filles de Illighadad – “At Pioneer Works” – [Sahel Sounds]

aarbor   4/27/2022   CD, International

Les Filles de Illighadad, Tuareg women who play guitars and combine both tendé (women’s music) with the guitar music played by their male neighbors, have graced our airwaves since their first album. This album, recorded in 2019 in Red Hook (Brooklyn), NY at the Pioneer Works arts center – rather than out of doors in North Africa, is their latest offering. The sound is meditative, but tender. It takes Tuareg guitar music (sometimes called desert blues) brought to the West by breakthrough artists from the region like Mdou Moctar, Bombino and Tinariwen, and fuses it with tendé. The result is repetitive and hypnotic, and conveys something spiritual and solemn but also has a sense of joy and playfulness that goes back to the music’s roots in village life. AArbor