Bride of the Zar

Rango is the name of a wooden xylophone and of a tradition that stretches back to Sudanese tribal culture, to forgotten languages and the cryptic liturgy embedded in the cult of the zar. It's a ritual trance ceremony believed to cleanse the soul and relieve suffering – a form of therapy by way of tambura, simsimiyya (lyre) and, of course, the rango, instead of a psychiatrist's chair.

Bride of the Zar follows on from a thrilling EP released last autumn to coincide with the Rango tour. Anyone who saw their gig at the Transcender Weekender in London will know how hypnotic, entrancing and often wildly ebullient a musical spectacle it is. This is music that penetrates the bones like an X-ray. The rango, played by Hassan Bergamon from Ismailia in Egypt, has bulbous gourd resonators under the wooden keys, reputedly inhabited by the spirits of the Rango masters who previously played them. The only three such instruments known to exist are each at least 150 years old, and Bergamon is the last living master of a fascinating and truly magical tradition that all but died out almost 40 years ago.

A haunted, heavyweight tambura rhythm opens the album as Bergamon gravely appeals to the zar spirits, so they might manifest themselves through the powerful vibrations of the strings. On ‘Holeela’, befeathered frontman TuTu plugs in a gloriously frenetic electric simsimiyya, while turbo-charged singer Sheikha Zanieb sandblasts the studio mics with a zar song about the suffering of women on ‘Free Mind’. Revealing of both the social and sacred traditions of rango, it's an album of huge variety, energy and depth.