Fototse Racines Roots

Claude Teta comes from a family of musical brothers who play tsapiky music for ceremonies and weddings. They live in Ampanihy, in south Madagascar, where tsapiky is the most popular dance form and blasts out of speakers almost everywhere. Fototse features Teta and friends singing and performing mainly on acoustic guitar; it's an album that moves away from tsapiky's usual electric dance format. These recordings were made in a studio at Toliara and under the big sky in the bush at Antsepolca. Teta's fluid style has much in common with Madagascar's best known guitar genius D'Gary, who he plays with frequently. In fact they live at different ends of the same long road, about eight hours’ hard driving distance apart.

Guitar music from south Madagascar can sound exactly like that journey through the wild dry regions in the shimmering heat, where spinning dust-devils tower into the sky. ‘Tsakorarake’ and ‘Renitra’ are two such tracks, with tight rippling staccato groups of notes opening into wide musical plains. Rapid fire embellishments snap the music back to the main route, only to hit another diversion. Teta mixes south Malagasy guitar styles with bluesy phrases, while mellow vocals mix with the drifting ambient sounds of the south-west's coast.