Customer Reviews

Akh Issudar

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

We had hardly heard of the Tuareg nomads of the southern Sahara a decade ago, a refugee people living in Algeria, Libya, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. But then our ears were open with the group Tinariwen with their feeling of blues and trance. Today, we are blessed with several other bands: Tartit, Etran Finatawa, and now Terakaft. This music uniquely communicates their struggles, their restricted travels, their life with and away from friends, and their love of the desert. With their close familial association with Tinairwen, Terakaft shares a similar sound, although less funky and rambunctious and closer to steady and quieter gnawa trance. It is difficult to chose which group or album is the better, since it all depends on one's mood. I echo the other reviewers in stating that Terakaft's Akh Issudar is an excellent, sophisticated album of desert soul. I dig it a lot.

Beautiful new album of desert blues from another outstanding Tuareg group Terakaft. Consistently brilliant from start to finish, with wonderful guitar playing and haunting trance like melodies, this has to be one of the finds of the year. Features some former members of Tinariwen and a similar groove. Fans of Tinariwen and Etran Finatwa will find much to like in Terakaft, easily one of the best Tuareg bands. Get it, you definitely won't regret it!

It's really a stunning collection of songs, with haunting and beautiful lyrics and inspired, multi-layered guitar work. Profound, bluesy homespun rootsy music, exotic but somehow familiar. If you like Tinariwen, you will definitely dig this as it's a similar sound. But it also has its own distinctive, magical feel to it that sets it apart. Deserves every bit of all five stars Of all the desert music from Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Western Sahara, etc., this is right up with anything...

"Great production skills notwithstanding, the studio album captures the earthy chants, ululations and call-response vocals so preeminent in North African music." #4 in TOP TEN ALBUMS, Global Rhythm

"This is a sombre campfire session of an album, one song seeding satisfyingly into the next in a sonic framework that evokes the enveloping blanket of desert darkness...it's about as good as Tuareg desert blues gets." - fRoots

"Unmistakably founded in the musical traditions of the region but undoubtedly modern in its instrumentation and execution." - Zook Beat

"It could all be summed up by the rubric of their song "Arghane Manine", "My soul burns while my people are under the yoke"." 4 STARS, The Independent