Le Monde Moderne

Welcome to volume two of a mesmeric voyage into the very bowels of the capital of Niger, Niamey, and beyond. Six years after the group's first album Château 1, Studio Shap Shap return with another soundscape that takes off from the busy junction between Niamey's people, animals, traffic, marketplaces and home life, and the itinerant routes taken by migrants going north. As with their first album, a gifted quartet of West African musicians (down from five after the sad loss of percussionist Boubé Diallo) join forces with Réunionese keyboardist and orchestrator Sakina. She stitches together her field recordings with the brilliant solos on the molo and komsa (lutes), the kindé (harp), the kalangou (talking drum) and her own electronica. The combination is an exuberant smorgasbord that addresses the deadly serious topics linked to migration. ‘They wait,’ repeats the opening voice, a sample of an English news report, ‘in 45-degree heat, they wait.’ And so do we, impatiently, for Shap Shap's third opus, which we anticipate will once again gel these driving string and percussion sounds with grainy electronic riffs and more peeps into Nigerien life, sometimes joyous, sometimes tragic.