Ahk Issudar. "Milk is survival." It's the second half of a Tamashek (aka Tuareg) proverb that begins with the phrase Aman Iman, or "Water is life." If you've followed global popular music at all in the last few years, you know that the latter is the title of desert rock standard bearers Tinariwen's superb 2007 album. Terakaft's completion of Tinariwen's thought is no accident-- the two bands are closely linked, and several songs on Terakaft's debut album are written by members of Tinariwen. Ahk Issudar does in some ways feel like a continuation of Aman Iman-- the style is similar but even more stripped down, and the songs have that familiar sense of longing, evoking shifting landscapes in wide open spaces.
The sound is as basic as possible. The three members all sing and play guitar, and two also play bass. There is no percussion, but one of the guitars typically plays a muted part that provides the illusion of a shaker or small hand drum. The other rhythm guitars tend to hammer away on a pedal tone, often in concert with the bass, which accents the underlying base tone rhythmically, and the lead guitar is cut loose to wander. It's very purposeful wandering, though. The leads soar over the shifting expanse of the rhythm as though navigating by some deeply understood guiding principle.
The lyrics-- all sung in Tamashek-- visit now-familiar themes of exile and loneliness, while paying tribute to Tuareg heroes, but there's one very glaring exception in "Amdagh", a song dedicated to a French zoo director who is working to save the last giraffes in Niger and the wild sheep of the Adrar Mountains. At first blush, it seems odd for people who are scraping out a living to champion a luxury like conservation, but then two things become clear: One, conservation is really no longer a luxury, and two, these Tamashek bands, in creating a new musical style, are ensuring that their cultural heritage has a vessel to carry it into the future, regardless of what happens to their way of life. In that respect, the zoo keeper is fighting to preserve the character of the desert they call home in much the same way they are-- it's rare that the intersection between cultural preservation and environmental preservation is so clearly elucidated on a record.
What separates this album from those made by Terakaft's colleagues is its uniquely ramshackle approach to what is essentially organic psychedelia. Acoustic guitars make a few appearances, and some songs, such as "Soubhanallah", have an open, free-flowing character that makes it feel like they simply blew up off the peak of a dune and became pieces of music. The all-acoustic closer offers a different sound, with more independence for each voice and a folky (in the Western sense) arrangement. This genre has reached a point of diversity where terms like "desert rock" and "desert blues" have become inadequate-- it needs its own name. Akh Issudar, however it's labeled, is another reminder that this corner of the world is producing some of the best and most rewarding music out there.
