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| Les Filles de Illighadad (Niger) |
Fatou Seidi Ghali and Alamnou Akrouni reside in the tiny village of Illighadad, Niger.
Fatou plays the tende, and an old blue guitar, slightly bent because of the extreme weather. She is one of only two Tuareg female guitarists. Together with her cousin, vocalist Alamnou Akrouni, they strip Tuareg music from all progressive leanings, right back to its bare essence.
Various Western African artists have expanded the Tuareg-blues movement on a global scale, but rarely have these soul-purging sounds resonated so candidly and emotively. This is communal music poured straight from the heart, performed to comfort the sick, to entertain the people and to blend in with the radiant ambience of the environment. Les Filles de Illighadad will play a total of three times at Le Guess Who?, marking the first time Fatou and Alamnou tour outside of their homeland.
source: Le Guess Who websiteFilles-Illighadad-20161112_Utrecht (2 songs)
setlist: 1.acoustic song (les filles duo) / 2.electric song (les filles duo with additional musicians)
In between the songs the DJ talks about the girls, that they were for the first time outside of Niger and stayed at the home of Andy of The Ex, who had to explain them how a toilet functions.
UPDATE: HERE YOU CAN LISTEN TO THE WHOLE CONCERT If for some reason it doesn't work for you and/or you want to have the recording yourself, make comment with Email and I'll take care that you can hear it. |
More about Les Filles:
- Album by Les Filles de Illighadad at BandCamp
- Posts about Les Filles at sahelsounds
- Fatou by Les Filles at youtube
yes very nice up here, they are playing Zuerich tomorrow and sure enough I will be there. Really hope they include some tinde-style songs as well.
ReplyDeleteAnd how was it seeing them making this wonderful music?
Deletewell to say it was an intimate show is to say the least...there were only about thirty people at El Lokal for the occasion, we spread out nicely just in front of the tiny stage so it was really a close affair and the vibes were very good right from the start.
DeleteThe three Filles came out and they looked gorgeous with their colorful robes and dark lipstick.
They treated us to 4 pieces of tindé in acoustic style for the first 20 minutes or so, all the while sitting on the handles of their special drumpiece while the third one was hitting it. Great hypnotic sounds in that section, it was actually difficult at times to understand who was singing what as they hardly move their mouths/lips while performing.
After that Fatou stood up and took her blue guitar, a male bass player joined the stage and from then on they played tuareg guitar blues for another extra hour or so. Alamnoou did a bit of dancing even moving around the bar amidst the audience at the end of the show.
The only other bit of instrumentation on stage was a calabash immersed in a recipient half full with water (seen that before with other tuareg groups) which was hit with the aid of a plastic shoe, an espadrilla or alike.
Altogether, I was impressed especially by the tinde section, which is a style I don't think I ever experienced at a live show before.
It was apparent from the moment they took the stage that they are still pretty new to the touring and performing activity yet, I am quite sure they didn't have a setlist in mind, but decided what to play between songs, talking to each other, giggling and exchanging shy and furtive looks to the audience members. Definitely no routine, and a great musical evening as far as I'm concerned.
thanks for both the songs and the video. this is magic
ReplyDeleterobert
by the way, mangue, check your mailbox
ReplyDeletejust came to it now, thanks!
Delete