Caresse de l'Âme

The Comoros islands are like four giant stepping-stones in the Indian Ocean standing between north Madagascar and Africa. Legend tells how a genie dropped a huge jewel into the sea, which burst into flame and became the volcano that formed the Comoros archipelago. Known as ‘The Voice of Comoros’, Nawal is a singer-songwriter, multiinstrumentalist and producer. But she is also like a magician from the Islamic golden age; Caresse de l'Âme is a disc with a sense of vision. She sings in Comorian, Arabic and French and uses only acoustic traditional instruments, frame drums, gambusi lute, sansa (thumb piano), flute and percussion. Her arrangements combine simplicity with space; at times, silence seems to implode between the notes of solo instrumental pieces such as ‘Origine’ Other rhythmic tracks feature her gentle close-mic'ed singing contrasting dynamically with distant backing vocals, creating a perspective that moves your focus to different places within the soundscape. Subtle changes of texture in the drumming and percussion bring interesting shifts of energy to cycles of phrases that repeat and evolve as in the mystic poem ‘Prière’.

As far as I can tell, Nawal is responsible for everything on the disc, playing all of the instruments and singing all of the parts using natural-sounding multi-track recording. Influences from Africa and the Indian Ocean complement her uniquely Comorian perspective, making Caresse de lÂme an album with originality and great sincerity from a talented musician.