Al Bilali Soudan

Al Bilali Soudan, a close-knit Tuareg family ensemble from TImbuktu Mali perform takamba music. Their instruments are traditional tehardents reinforced with electronic buzz and grit, and calabash percussion. Their musical repertoire is an evolving contemporary adaptation and improvisation of traditional themes always faithful to the path of the musical greats of the Sahara. Definitely not low-vibration music, this is one massively whirling freakout taken at headlong pace. When nothing less than a trance will do.

SELECTED PRESS

“They will get your attention, guaranteed. If you like desert music enough to suspect you've heard it before, you haven't--Tinariwen are showbiz by comparison, Tamikrest urbane, Tartit cute. And should you instead suspect that this noisy, indelicate stuff is the roughest African music ever recorded, that's because you haven't heard their 2012 debut.” - Robert Christgau

“Never once does the intensity break its penetrating stare. Eleven tracks blur and feed into one massively whirling freakout taken at headlong pace. When nothing less than a trance will do.” Dennis Rozanski, BluesRag - mojoworking.com

“Tombouctou is one of the most aurally intense albums I've heard so far this year, even without the addition of styles like the blues-rock or reggae that blend so well in much Kel Tamasheq pop. It has spikes, it has teeth, it shines almost too brightly, eschewing warm and earthy in favor of metallic blaze. To listen to it straight through takes a similar kind of stamina as seeing a live show would. These lovingly perpetuated Malian folk traditions are decidedly not for the faint of heart or ear. They are for moving forward at a breakneck pace, all while holding on to what matters, and for Al Bilali Soudan, such an approach points to an exciting, completely unpredictable future.” – Andrea Pontecorvo, Popmatters