DJAM!

The two musicians who make up DJAM! have both featured separately in recent issues of Songlines. The Dutch guitarist Joep Pelt absorbed the blues listening to the Mississippi Delta masters and then discovered African music. This led to the album he recorded with the Ethiopian singer Helen Mengestu and Eritrean saxophonist Amanyal ‘Million’ Tewelde as the Entoto Band, which was a Top of the World in Songlines #188. The Malian guitarist Bounaly Traoré, a nephew of Afel Bocoum, was featured as an Introducing… artist in Songlines #194 for his debut solo album Dimanche à Bamako. Together they’ve recorded a rocking West African desert blues album with foundational influences. One can hear the sounds of Tinariwen (‘Ganda’), Ali Farka Touré (‘Lasalterey’) and Amadou & Mariam (‘La Paix’). Pelt also adds some striking Delta slide guitar and then, totally out of left-field, the pair chuck in the utterly delightful ‘Dounia’, which invents an entirely new sub-genre that can only be described as Songhoy rockabilly.