Consumer Guide Album

L'Orchestre National Mauritanien: Ahl Nana [Radio Martiko, 2023]
Recorded in Casablanca way back in 1971, these 10 six- to nine-minute tracks by a family credited dubiously with foreshadowing the likes of Tinariwen and other desert guitar bands could dub themselves the "national orchestra" of their sparsely populated, largely Saharan and Arab-Berber land because no one else had applied for the job. Their groove devoid of the complex polyrhythms of dance musics from Senegal down to Congo and also the thrust of the Malian and related styles that would soon emerge, they rely instead on what sounds and also looks in the cover photo like an all-female chorus call-and-responsing to drums-lute-kora with vigor, conviction, and delight. Tinariwen are fine. But half a century ago this ensemble was far more singular. A-