055: Moorish Music from Mauritania, by Khalifa Ould Eide & Dimi Mint Abba

Khalifa Ould Eide & Dimi Mint Abba (Mauritania)
Moorish Music from Mauritania (1990)
11 tracks, 68 minutes
Bandcamp • Spotify • iTunes

This album was one of the first releases from the now-legendary World Circuit Records, as well as one of the earliest releases of Mauritanian music intended for a wider international audience.

The music of Mauritania is a mirror to the country’s geographic and cultural position. Mostly in the Sahara desert, the country marks the crossover between the Arabic and Berber cultures to the north and the Mande, Songhai and Wolof cultures to the south. The music of the Bidhan (or Moorish) population of Mauritania reflects this well: their melodies are mostly pentatonic but with ornaments that sound almost like classical Arabic music at points; their string instruments such as the ardin and tidinit resemble the donsongoni and the ngoni of the south, but their drums and percussion are more Arabic. It’s a fascinating sound, but what really attracts me is that it is so, so bluesy all the way through. Just listen to the chorus melody on the first track, ‘Waidalal Waidalal’ – it’s got some crystal clear examples of blues notes that make me want to do a full-on power ballad fist-pump.

Although guitarist and tidinit player Khalifa Ould Eide is given the first credit on the album cover, I cast no shade upon his skill when I say that it is most definitely Dimi Mint Abba who is the star of this one. Her voice is sublime. The control she holds over the notes she sings is absolute, allowing her to make incredibly subtle changes to the pitch and tone to give the slightest difference in inflection, changing the whole emotional atmosphere of a passage. Her high notes soar over the low-pitched tbal drums and she can go from quiet and delicate to straight-up roaring without so much as a blink. She was said to be the favourite singer of Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré, and it’s a real pity that there seems to be no recordings of them playing together – especially as they both shared a record label for a long time.

Mauritania is still rather underrepresented on the world stage of music, I feel, although lately a star has emerged in Noura Mint Seymali – perhaps it’s not a coincidence that she is Dimi Mint Abba’s step-daughter. Whether it is the more traditional style of music as heard on Moorish Music from Mauritania or the rockier stuff that Noura has been making the world dance to, I would love for this wonderful music to get more exposure. Maybe I should start a #MoreMauritanianMusic campaign…