Les Filles De Illighadad

★★★★

At Pioneer Works SAHEL SOUNDS. CD/DL/LP

The third wave of Tuareg blues, recorded live in Brooklyn.

Led by Fatou Seidi Ghali, Les Filles are not your standard Tuareg rock band, and the fact they consider themselves folk musicians may indicate a reluctance on the part of the three women at the core of the group to align themselves too closely with male-dominated peers such as Tinariwen. Yet, if their use of traditional percussion (the tende drum), chants and rhythms sets them apart in the eyes and ears of their audience in Niger, this distinction is unlikely to bother curious outsiders. Instead, we can focus on their insistent beat and the ragged interplay between the guitarists that is seriously (Warhol-era) Velvet Underground-like in its sting. Though, as the pounding Irriganan proves, they don’t need axes to rock’n’roll. Those old Saharan blues may possess an abundance of secrets yet to be revealed.