Consumer Guide Album

Bombino: Sahel [Partisan, 2023]
Internationalist Tuareg guitar adept Oumar Moctar has never sounded defter or brisker. Subtly yet declaratively, lyrically yet cogently, he's always making desert music one way or the other. But with one-man percussion cohort Corey Wilhelm buoying the boss's rhythms so brightly you could lose your bearings and claim he evokes a bubbling spring, you're grateful that the other West Africans featured here do more than simultaneously pour on the sand and fill out the ensemble. They make it an ensemble, all for one and one for all. A-