Eghass Malan

This album of Touareg/Tamashek music from Niger is of a similar cultural background to popular groups like Etran Finatawa and Mali's Tinariwen but is altogether more beguiling and less militant in form. It is the second recording by female guitarist Fatou Seidi Ghali and her cousin Alamnou Akrouni. They come from a remote village and play two distinct hybrids of traditional Berber music.

Recorded while on their first tour outside of Niger in 2016, the two women are joined by a third voice – Mariama Salah Assouan – and a male rhythm guitarist, Ahmoudou Madassané. Fatou is a self-taught guitarist who, on this recording, plays a Fender electric guitar in the epitome of the gently meandering desert blues style. It hypnotically weaves in and out of the three-part vocal polyphonic counterpoint – deeply effective and totally engaging, while seeming casually effortless. The other style they play is known as tende. It's another polyphonic vocal style stabbed with ululations, backed by a hand drum and the persistent bass thud of a calabash water drum, struck with a leather-bound beater. An exceptional album of gentle and sublime beauty.