March 10, 2023
Matador
1xLP
For our money, there's maybe two or three guitarists on the planet that can compete with Tuareg maestro Mdou Moctar. The Niger EP's, which evolved from a series of mixtapes cataloguing sonic experiments like studio-recordings, voice memos, field recordings, interviews into companion albums leave little room for any argument otherwise. Moctar burst onto the scene with his reimagining of Prince's Purple Rain (Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai, which translates to Rain The Colour Of Blue With A Little Red In It) and has since taken the six-string world by storm, his endearing blend of traditional eastern music and Hendrix-inspired pyroclasm forcing his name into the conversation of the best pure musicians alive. It's incendiary without pretension, at once alien and native. It's for anything who's ever had visions of bleeding finger pads and a crowd erupting in near-religious fervor. It goes, and we cannot stress this enough, so hard.