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CD
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GB 038CD
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2016 release. "A full blown sandstorm of hypnotic grooves, melding traditional Mauritanian instruments, like the ardine and tidinite, within an electrified psychedelic rock band" --The Quietus. The 2014 release of Noura Mint Seymali's debut album, Tzenni (GB 016CD/LP), launched her onto year-end lists and the stages of renowned international festivals. Noura Mint Seymali hails from a Moorish musical dynasty in Mauritania, and chose at an early age to embrace the art-form that is its lifeblood. Yet traditional pedigree has proven but a stepping-stone for Seymali's work, with which she simultaneously popularizes and reimagines Moorish music on the global stage, taking her family's legacy to new heights as arguably Mauritania's most widely exported musical act of all time. Wielding the griot's idiom, a form itself distilled from centuries of trans-Saharan musical knowledge, Noura Mint Seymali's sound as heard on her blistering second international release, Arbina, carves out a unique position in the musical cartography of West Africa, at once her country's leading proponent of the avant-garde and yet a rigorously devoted tradition-bearer. Delving deeper into the wellspring of Moorish roots, as is after all the tried and true way of the griot, the album strengthens her core sound, applying a cohesive aesthetic approach to the reinterpretation of Moorish tradition in contemporary context. The band is heard here in full relief; soaring vocals and guitar at the forefront, the mesmerizing sparkle of the ardine, elemental basslines and propulsive rhythms swirling together to conjure a 360-degree vibe. Arbina refines a sound that the band has gradually intensified over years of touring, aiming to posit a new genre from Mauritania, distinct unto itself; music of the "Azawan." Supported by guitarist fellow griot, her husband Jeiche Ould Chighaly, Seymali's tempestuous voice is answered with electrified counterpoint, with Chighaly's quarter-tone-rich guitar phraseology flashing out lightning-bolt ideas. Heir to the same music culture as Seymali, Chighaly intimates the leading role of the tidinit (Moorish lute) under the wedding khaima with the gusto of a rock guitar hero. Bassist Ousmane Touré, who has found a singular style of Moorish low-end groove over the course of many years, can be heard on this album with greater force and vigor than ever before. Drummer and producer Matthew Tinari drives the ensemble forward with the agility and precision need to make the beats cut. Many of the songs on Arbina call out to the divine, from which the album takes its title, and ask for grace and protection. Lyrically, the Moorish griot tradition is complex and associative. Poetry is held in a continuum between author and audience in which a singer may draw on disparate sources, selecting individual lines here or there for musicality to form a lyrical patchwork expressing larger ideas via association. A griot may relate her own thoughts and poetry, sing poetry written for and about her by a third party, and transmit lines from one party addressing another in the course of a single song. With this fluid narrative voice, stories are told. Recorded and mixed by Tony Maimone at Studio G Brooklyn, NY.
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LP
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GB 038LP
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LP version. 180-gram vinyl. Includes download code. 2016 release. "A full blown sandstorm of hypnotic grooves, melding traditional Mauritanian instruments, like the ardine and tidinite, within an electrified psychedelic rock band" --The Quietus. The 2014 release of Noura Mint Seymali's debut album, Tzenni (GB 016CD/LP), launched her onto year-end lists and the stages of renowned international festivals. Noura Mint Seymali hails from a Moorish musical dynasty in Mauritania, and chose at an early age to embrace the art-form that is its lifeblood. Yet traditional pedigree has proven but a stepping-stone for Seymali's work, with which she simultaneously popularizes and reimagines Moorish music on the global stage, taking her family's legacy to new heights as arguably Mauritania's most widely exported musical act of all time. Wielding the griot's idiom, a form itself distilled from centuries of trans-Saharan musical knowledge, Noura Mint Seymali's sound as heard on her blistering second international release, Arbina, carves out a unique position in the musical cartography of West Africa, at once her country's leading proponent of the avant-garde and yet a rigorously devoted tradition-bearer. Delving deeper into the wellspring of Moorish roots, as is after all the tried and true way of the griot, the album strengthens her core sound, applying a cohesive aesthetic approach to the reinterpretation of Moorish tradition in contemporary context. The band is heard here in full relief; soaring vocals and guitar at the forefront, the mesmerizing sparkle of the ardine, elemental basslines and propulsive rhythms swirling together to conjure a 360-degree vibe. Arbina refines a sound that the band has gradually intensified over years of touring, aiming to posit a new genre from Mauritania, distinct unto itself; music of the "Azawan." Supported by guitarist fellow griot, her husband Jeiche Ould Chighaly, Seymali's tempestuous voice is answered with electrified counterpoint, with Chighaly's quarter-tone-rich guitar phraseology flashing out lightning-bolt ideas. Heir to the same music culture as Seymali, Chighaly intimates the leading role of the tidinit (Moorish lute) under the wedding khaima with the gusto of a rock guitar hero. Bassist Ousmane Touré, who has found a singular style of Moorish low-end groove over the course of many years, can be heard on this album with greater force and vigor than ever before. Drummer and producer Matthew Tinari drives the ensemble forward with the agility and precision need to make the beats cut. Many of the songs on Arbina call out to the divine, from which the album takes its title, and ask for grace and protection. Lyrically, the Moorish griot tradition is complex and associative. Poetry is held in a continuum between author and audience in which a singer may draw on disparate sources, selecting individual lines here or there for musicality to form a lyrical patchwork expressing larger ideas via association. A griot may relate her own thoughts and poetry, sing poetry written for and about her by a third party, and transmit lines from one party addressing another in the course of a single song. With this fluid narrative voice, stories are told. Recorded and mixed by Tony Maimone at Studio G Brooklyn, NY.
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GB 016LP
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Restocked. 180 gram LP version, housed in a gatefold sleeve. Includes download code. "'Tzenni' in Hassaniya means to circulate, to spin, to turn. It's the name for a whirling dance performed to the music of Moorish griots, often under khaima tents thrown up for street gatherings in the sandy quarters of Nouakchott and out across the wide deserts of Mauritania. Tzenni is an orbit, the movement of the earth around the sun, the daily progression of light and dark, lunar cycles, tides and winds. Tzenni, the dance, comes forth as the cyclical trajectory of a Moorish musical gathering builds to a feverish pitch. Produced and recorded across an appropriately dizzying array of locations and social contexts (New York City, Dakar, Nouakchott), the album Tzenni is a contemporary articulation of Moorish griot music from Mauritania -- an artform that has been evolving and gaining momentum for centuries -- as voiced by Noura Mint Seymali, an artist profoundly steeped in its history and rigorously devoted to its global resonance. Noura Mint Seymali comes from a long line of visionary musicians. Seymali Ould Ahmed Vall, her father, was a scholar-artist instrumental in opening Mauritanian music to the world; devising the first system for Moorish melodic notation, adapting music for the national anthem, and composing works popularized by his wife (Noura's step-mother), the great Dimi Mint Abba. From her precocious beginnings as a teenaged backing vocalist with Dimi Mint Abba, Noura Mint Seymali now drives the legacy forward, re-calibrating Moorish music for our contemporary moment. Her band's arrangements, rigor, and experimental spirit may be understood as a continuation of the tradition of Seymali, Dimi, her grandmother Mounina, and countless others. Together with her husband, heroic guitarist Jeiche Ould Chighaly, who brings the force of yet another powerful branch of Moorish musical lineage, the band on this recording was conceived as a distillation of essential elements, the 'azawan' and the backbeat. The ardine & tidinit (or guitar) together are the 'azawan,' the leading ensemble of Moorish traditional music, while bass & drums, played here by Ousmane Touré and Matthew Tinari, fortify it with genre-transcendent funk and a basic pop urgency. Tzenni re-visits several classics of the Moorish repertoire, but does so within a novel formation, conversant in the pop idiom, and with Noura Mint's practice of aligning music to a given socio-historical and personal moment, it is an essential charge of the iggawen, or griot, and, we believe, of artists everywhere. As we seek to convey another turn in the Mauritanian musical dialectic, Tzenni is ultimately an album about shapeshifting, faith, and stability found through instability." --Matthew Tinari, producer/drummer for Noura Mint Seymali
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CD
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GB 016CD
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Midline pricing. "'Tzenni' in Hassaniya means to circulate, to spin, to turn. It's the name for a whirling dance performed to the music of Moorish griots, often under khaima tents thrown up for street gatherings in the sandy quarters of Nouakchott and out across the wide deserts of Mauritania. Tzenni is an orbit, the movement of the earth around the sun, the daily progression of light and dark, lunar cycles, tides and winds. Tzenni, the dance, comes forth as the cyclical trajectory of a Moorish musical gathering builds to a feverish pitch. Produced and recorded across an appropriately dizzying array of locations and social contexts (New York City, Dakar, Nouakchott), the album Tzenni is a contemporary articulation of Moorish griot music from Mauritania -- an artform that has been evolving and gaining momentum for centuries -- as voiced by Noura Mint Seymali, an artist profoundly steeped in its history and rigorously devoted to its global resonance. Noura Mint Seymali comes from a long line of visionary musicians. Seymali Ould Ahmed Vall, her father, was a scholar-artist instrumental in opening Mauritanian music to the world; devising the first system for Moorish melodic notation, adapting music for the national anthem, and composing works popularized by his wife (Noura's step-mother), the great Dimi Mint Abba. From her precocious beginnings as a teenaged backing vocalist with Dimi Mint Abba, Noura Mint Seymali now drives the legacy forward, re-calibrating Moorish music for our contemporary moment. Her band's arrangements, rigor, and experimental spirit may be understood as a continuation of the tradition of Seymali, Dimi, her grandmother Mounina, and countless others. Together with her husband, heroic guitarist Jeiche Ould Chighaly, who brings the force of yet another powerful branch of Moorish musical lineage, the band on this recording was conceived as a distillation of essential elements, the 'azawan' and the backbeat. The ardine & tidinit (or guitar) together are the 'azawan,' the leading ensemble of Moorish traditional music, while bass & drums, played here by Ousmane Touré and Matthew Tinari, fortify it with genre-transcendent funk and a basic pop urgency. Tzenni re-visits several classics of the Moorish repertoire, but does so within a novel formation, conversant in the pop idiom, and with Noura Mint's practice of aligning music to a given socio-historical and personal moment, it is an essential charge of the iggawen, or griot, and, we believe, of artists everywhere. As we seek to convey another turn in the Mauritanian musical dialectic, Tzenni is ultimately an album about shapeshifting, faith, and stability found through instability." --Matthew Tinari, producer/drummer for Noura Mint Seymali
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