Ishumar
Lead singer Moussa Ag Keyna who, together with Aminatou and French producer Dan Levy, has created a sublime new African desert sound, but behind that smile, the nomad on his camel hides many problems.
A nomad, who has spent his whole life amongst the compounds of the Sahara desert, is loath to leave. He follows his camels on the quest to find water, he tends his animals whilst absorbed in song, he wraps his face in the turban that protects him from the harsh desert sands. This is the life he has always known, a life he doesn't want to leave behind. But political persecution and drought are destroying this existence. Moussa Ag Keyna was driven from the struggle of liberation by injury to France where he changed his gun for a guitar.
Despite the pain and sadness in the songs, there is also a passion for the desert that emerges through the lively rhythm, the vibrant melody and an irresistible pop sensibility.
Reviews
Excellent Album
The stinging electric Ishumar style is here, along with ululations, crystalline vocals and driving percussion from Aminatou Goumar and guttural call-and-responses from a self-restrained chorus. But here, too, are far sighted additions from French and African musicians on bass, drums and strings... songs of Toureg liberation have a bright, almost poppy urgency.
Music Became The Weapon
"We love the Desert, we love its freedom. That's the life that makes us happiest." So says Moussa Ag Keyna who formed Toumast in Paris, with the mesmerising singer Aminatou Goumar... the Dan Levy-produced 'Ishumar' is never weighed down by it's influences, and Moussa's time in Europe has inspired the young songwriter to create new directions for this music, as shown with the funk hooks of 'Ikalane Walegh' and jazz excursions of 'Tallyatidagh'.
Powerful & Emotional
Based around Keyna's looping guitar riffs and Goumar's subtly persistent percussion, these powerful and emotional songs vivdly conjure images of the desert life of these proud nomads and the pain felt by those living in exile.
This music may owe it origins to the ancient rhythms of the Touareg, but thanks to their inventive arrangements and instrumentation they are given a thoroughly modern twist, particularly through the use of rap on the powerful 'Maraou Oran'... The repetitive rhythms, call and response vocals and subliminal percussion of many of these songs on this compelling and thought-provoking album lends them a trance-like quality which, combined with the innovative use of Western arrangements, suggests that the music we know as desert blues still has a few surprises to spring.
Bears all the hallmarks of future success.
(Toumast's) debut album... bears all the hallmarks of future success.
It's a powerful brew of mournfulness, defiance and reflection underpinned throughout with the distinctive mesmeric Saharan rhythms which Tinariwen first brought to the British musical palate.
And lead singer Moussa Ag Kenya has plenty to sing about. A veteran of the Toaureg Liberation Front's armed national liberation struggle in the 1980s, his lyrics touch on the pain of life under oppression and political disenchantment in the wake of the conflict's end.
Successfully fusing the traditional and the Western with the aid of percussionist Aminatour Goumar, there's even space for violin and cello in this innovative mix, which takes the Saharan sound and ratchets it up a notch.
Ishumar underlines exactly why Toumast went down a storm at this year's distinctly damp WOMAD festival. Seek it out.
Ishumar
Tinariwen may have brought the rhythmic, loping desert blues of northern Mali to an international audience, but they have competition.... The songs sound like a lighter, more western version of Tinariwen, with some fine bursts of blues guitar work and light, insistent percussion, matched by far more gloomy lyrics.
Dazzling
.... dismissing this album as a mere carbon copy (of Tinariwen) would be missing out on something quite amazing.
Call it desert blues or Touareg rock'n'roll, it's the hypnotic, addictive groove which makes it so easily appealing to a mainstream audience unfamiliar with African music. After a few listens to Ishumar you'll be hooked.
As with Tinariwen, the electric guitar is the most important instrument here. Coupled with singer-songwriter and guitarist Ag Keyna's rebel attitude it makes for perfect fare for a rock audience, too.... He got together with his niece, percussionist and haunting vocalist Aminatou Goumar and the French multi-instrumentalist/ producer Dan Levy ..
The main criticism slung at this genre is that it can get a bit samey but the tracks on Ishumar - all sung in Berber Arabic and mainly about the Touareg struggles - include enough musical variety to avoid being remotely boring. Particularly dazzling are the foot-stomping opening track ''Ikalane Walegh'' and ''Maraou Oran (For 12 Moons)'', which Ag Keyna wrote when hearing that 12 of his fellow freedom fighters had been assassinated.
Compelling
In exile, the Touareg became known as the Ishumar, a derivation of the French chômeur, meaning "unemployed", a term reappropriated as a badge of honour and used with pride here as the title of his debut album.
During the conflict, Moussa was seriously wounded and was fortunate to receive medical treatment in France. A couple of years later, with the conflict officially settled, he was contemplating a return when he heard that 12 of his comrades had been assassinated. He elected to stay in France and become a warrior-poet and musician. Ten years later, he got the chance to commemorate his comrades in the song "Maraou Oran" ("For Twelve Moons"), a lament not just for the dead but for the way the tragedy petrified his soul: "For 12 moons I've been a prisoner of my thoughts, my worries root me like a stake."
It's a stark but resonant image, characteristic of the reflective, poetic manner in which the Touareg seem to deal with the fallout from that conflict.
The Desert Blues Given a Crash Course in Funk!
"....a display of the incredibly soulful Toureg sound...Moussa, a one-time rebel, put down his gun and picked up the guitar, finding in this incredible music a more persuasive means of dissent.
Imagine: the desert blues of Ali Farka Toure given a crash course in funk on a sojurn to Paris. Fuller, funkier and as forceful as Tinariwen, your Toureg collection just doubled in size!
Tracklist & Audio Samples
| play | Ikalane Walegh (These Countries That Are Not Mine) |
| play | Tallyatidagh (That Girl) |
| play | Innulamane |
| play | Ammilana (O My God, O My Soul) |
| play | Ezeref (My Camel) |
| play | Dounia |
| play | Maraou Oran (For Twelve Moons) |
| play | Kik Ayittma (Hey! My Brothers!) |
| play | Amidinine (Oh My Friend, Oh My Friend) |