Arbina (2016)
10 tracks, 41 minutes
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In February, I featured the album Moorish Music from Mauritania by Dimi Mint Abba and Khalifa Ould Eide. That album is a classic of Mauritanian music, in the griot style of the country’s Bidhan (Moorish) people. Mint Abba’s voice is legendary, and the accompaniment of ardin (bridge-harp), tidinit (lute) and very occasionally electric guitar brought forth the sound of the Sahara. The repertoire on that album was in a very traditional style.
Apart from Mint Abba, however, and especially after her death in 2011, the international music scene had a real dearth of Bidhan musicians, such a shame considering their unique musical style. That was until Noura Mint Seymali exploded onto the scene with her 2014 debut album on Glitterbeat Records, Tzenni, and this follow-up from 2016, Arbina.
Mint Seymali is the step-daughter of Dimi Mint Abba, but unlike her elder and mentor, she isn’t content to stick to playing her people’s traditional music. With her guitarist husband Jeiche Ould Chighaly, the music they create together is an altogether more rocking affair, but one that retains all of the most intoxicating elements of the centuries-old styles. The result is one that is still undoubtedly from that magical crossroads between the Mande, Songhoy, Tuareg, Amazigh, Arab, Gnawa, Saharawi, Fula and Wolof people that surround the Mauritanian Sahara from all sides. Mint Seymali’s voice has that beautiful mix of Arabic ornamentation and the bluesy, pentatonic feel of the music of the slightly further south.
The band here is a modified rock set-up. Of the four musicians, there is drum kit, bass guitar, electric guitar and vocals, with Mint Seymali also adding the ardin – the indispensable instrument of female Bidhan griots. The bass and drum kit are far from traditional Mauritanian instruments but nevertheless create a groove that is based on the rhythms of the tbal drum, as well as the rock greats – I’d have bassist Ousmane Touré in my fantasy funky blues band any day, his lines are so solid. Ould Chighaly’s electric guitar really helps anchor the music in place. This isn’t your standard electric guitar, it’s a Nouakchott speciality – for every one fret that yer bog standard blooze player has, Ould Chighaly has two. That means he gets to access the notes in between the notes, and it’s these quarter tones that allow him to so accurately convey the nuances of the tidinit to the axe, with as much or as little distortion as appropriate. Just these three musicians alone could create melon-twisting music as a trio – like Cream if they were fuelled by Saharan sand and campfire tea rather than blues and cocaine. I actually also get a proper 60s folk rock thing from them at points – check out the song ‘Ghlana’ with its wailing slide guitar that could be straight out of early Tull – yowch! And that’s all without even taking into account the spectacular and spellbinding voice of Mint Seymali up front, roaring incredibly intricate melodies with utmost dignity.
I’m really glad that Noura Mint Seymali came around when she did. Coming on the same wave of mainstream appreciation for the rockier elements of that Saharan sound including Tinariwen and Songhoy Blues, Mint Seymali and her musicians give the Mauritanian griot style an important look-in. When a musical tradition is so unique and instantly recognisable as this, it would be a crime to let it go unheard. It also helps that it sounds amazing played as loud as possible by musicians unafraid of cranking up the drive dial and sinking fully into that fist-pumping groove.
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