“Adounia Idagh” (2018) – Bombino * Written by Abdallah Ag Oumbadougou * LP: Deran * Label: Partisan Records
The newcomer to the Nigerian Tuareg vocalist/guitarist Bombino (real name Omara Moctar) may approach with skepticism, seeing that his most recent album cover presents him in the visual language of “saint.” But the addictive nature of his music (sung in the Tamasheq language), his guitar command, and his people-power role in Tuareg culture should see the newcomer through. Originally from Niger, he has relocated throughout his life to Algeria, Libya, and Burkina Faso, due to unrest among the nomadic Tuaregs and the significant reality of the Niger government’s attempt to ban guitars. Things settled down by 2010, when he returned to Niger, played triumphant shows, and recorded steadily to build on high-profile acknowledgment, such as a 2008 recording date with three Rolling Stones (Watts, Wood, and Jagger) on saxophonist Tim Ries’s Stones World. His nickname, incidentally, comes from bambino, that most musical-sounding of Italian words. Although Bombino recorded his 2018 Deran (well wishes) album in the king of Morocco’s studio HIBA in Casablanca, its best moments make you feel like you’re nowhere indoors, maybe at the top of a mountain which is the title translation for this track, written by pioneering Tuareg guitarist Abdallah Ag Oumbadougou.