AFRIQUE VICTIME MDOU MOCTAR

(2021)

Of all today’s guitar superheroes, Mdou Moctar has the best origin story, having grown up in rural Niger, building his own guitar out of sardine cans, bike cables and spare wood, and learning in secret so as not to offend his parents’ sensibilities. That determination and ingenuity would be put to good use once he started using a proper guitar, settling on a Fender Stratocaster through a Roland Jazz Chorus, some judiciously chosen stompboxes to make his Tuareg guitar sound really pop. But what is that sound? Moctar has a restless ear for composition. On Afrique Victime, his wiry electric guitar coils around the beat, dancing out of the way of his vocal. It is a beguiling phantasm of a sound, summoning the spirit of the desert, giving his songs an electric presence that reinterprets traditional Tuareg styles as something unorthodox, psychedelic and timeless. Recorded on the road, Afriquevictime sounds alive and vital. Moctar’s quicksilver phrasing speaks to the eternal possibilities of the electric guitar.