Mdou Moctar’s Band May Be Even Heavier Without Him
“Amidinin” is the first release by Takaat, a new project from the Tuareg guitarist’s supporting players.
When I profiled Mdou Moctar around the release of Funeral for Justice last year, there was a refrain I heard a few times from people close to the Saharan guitar phenom and his band. It went something like this: Everybody knows Mdou is great—but what about Ahmadou and Souleyman? It wasn’t a slight against Moctar, whose fusions of traditional Tuareg music and Western hard rock have established him as one of the world’s most thrilling electric guitarists, as much as a wish for rhythm guitarist Ahmadou Madassane and drummer Souleyman Ibrahim to be recognized as players of the same caliber.
Now, they’re one step closer to getting their due. The two of them, along with Mdou bassist and manager Mikey Coltun, have a new band called Takaat, which means “noise” in the Tuareg language Tamasheq. They just released “Amidinin,” the first single from an EP called Takaat Is Noise, Vol. 1, which will arrive via Coltun’s own Purplish Records on April 18. In some ways, the song is not a huge departure from the sound these three are known for. It’s built on a variation of the same Takamba groove that powers Moctar’s music, a polyrhythmic stomp that sounds at once both utterly locked in and like it might explode into chaos at any moment. Madassane’s vocal melodies also follow familiar lines, with short repeated phrases organized around sustained high notes. None of this is a surprise, given that they’re drawing from the same traditional music, and that the Mdou songwriting process tends to involve the group fleshing out his tunes into full-band arrangements.
But there is one big difference: Takaat come across like a punk band. Moctar’s last few records sound huge, with lots of layered guitars and carefully tuned production effects. “Amidinin,” on the other hand, is clearly the work of a power trio. I don’t know how they recorded it, but it sounds more or less like they set up a few microphones in a practice space and started ripping a live take: Madassane’s guitar pushing into the red, as if the speaker were on the verge of blowing out; Ibrahim’s drums unadorned with reverb and right up front in the mix, as if he were thwacking the snare drum right across the room from you. The song is also less organized around guitar showmanship than the average Moctar tune. Though there are several shredding instrumental passages, they feel more like group rhythmic improvisations than solos, with all three players in a cyclic dance rather than supporting any one particular leader.
As an opening salvo, “Amidinin” bodes well for the future of this band. I already got my tickets to see them in June.
