Awesome Tapes from Africa

thanks for all the incredible music you've given me. including this.
 

Love it!
 

yeah this is nice
 

SERIOUSLY POWERFUL. LOVE IT. My favorite that you've posted. Ears are dancing.
 

brain food!!! a whole different way of looking at things... not just the same ideas i could more easily get from a david byrne album... no, no, this is what i'm talkin' about!!!!!

=D
 

brian, much love for the site from kenya. please check your yahoo mail, i've told you about a new project called raw music international and am eager to hear what you think.
cyrus
 

Thank you, this is great!
 

a little background:

This is a type of music known as "isswat" -- it's the traditional music of the Adrar D'Ifoghas in Northern Mali, characterized the men performing the bass humming and the women singing the melody. The singer, Fadimoutou Wallet Inamoud, recorded this at the Maison de Luxembourg studio in Kidal. She no longer sings, having married, as it's usually an activity for unmarried youth.

"Isswat is an activity relegated to the night. After the stars have come out, the families have finished dinner, the youth sneak off. Perhaps one will begin playing a tende. The other young and unmarried youth will hear this, the distant low pounding of the drum. Sneaking off to some locale away from the camp, the youth assemble.

The music of the issawat is characterized by the sigadah, the low humming of the men, which provides a bass, and the woman who will sing the melody. The songs are often provocative, songs of love, albeit it in a very coy and covert manner. Issawat is also the opportunity for the youth to meet and flirt, and in the periphery of the performance, the young boys and girls whisper to one another."

(link)

It's also the root of the ishumar guitar -- just listen to any track of Tinariwen and you'll hear a low droning bass of the repeatedly struck low G, not unlike this bass of the sigadah.

Happy new year!
 

I like this very much!
Any idea what the individual tracks are called?
 

I Like It...
 

fantastic.
 

crazy , awesome , dont stop, a great archive slash library u are providing ---

have u considered putting the follow this blog function on, would love to stay in the know about your blog.
 

3rd track side B
sounds like all parties are under hypnosis
it feels like they are unaware
it feels like they are zombies
 

oh yeah man this is just so damn cool!!!! loving it!! thank you, brother!
 

thank you this is great!
 

i reeeeally, i mean really, like this tape, so i've been listening extra carefully. if you number the tracks 1-7 on the A side and 8-14 on the B side, you can say that 1 thru 5 are a repeat of 6 thru 10. I like the tape better without the repeats, which you could get, one way for example, by listening to the first 2 tracks on side A and then the entire side B all the way through. Hope somebody out there appreciates the info, probably nobody cares, but i reeeeally like the tape!
=D
 

Allah Akbar,man!
 

http://www.tamasheq.net/fadimoutou-wallet-inamoud-kidal-2008.html

is this the same album?