There have always been two sides to the music of Nigerien guitarist and bandleader Mdou Moctar: the electric and the acoustic, the sweaty ballroom and the evening campfire, the wedding dance and the lament. If Mdou Moctar’s terrific 2024 album Funeral for Justice was the electric sound of the furious political protest, Tears of Injustice is the mourning after, the bonding that takes place when people huddle together for strength as your friends are dying and your enemies are in power.
Recorded in early 2023, Funeral, Moctar’s third studio album for Matador and seventh overall, was an explosive mix of psychedelic rock, Tuareg desert blues and Prince’s stratospheric leads. Then, in July of that year, Moctar and most of his band, rhythm guitarist Ahmoudou Madassane and drummer Souleymane Ibrahim (bass player Mikey Coltun is based in the U.S.) found themselves in exile for a spell as the president of Niger was deposed in a coup and closed the borders.
After the tour to support Funeral, the band laid down acoustic versions of the Funeral material, often in one take, feeling out arrangements, reworking the songs in ways no less powerful than the originals, but quieter, more gestural, less anthemic. The results will find favor with folk music fans, modern guitar rebels, and inner space explorers alike.
A squiggly, five-minute rocket ship on Funeral, “Imouhar” finds a staggering new form here, eight minutes that recalls a Neil Young afternoon in Laurel Canyon one moment and an African desert the next, electric leads transformed into knotty acoustic guitars and distant drums. “Oh France,” a protest against Niger’s former colonial rulers, opens with a looping solo before finding a groove — if the distorted, electric version was a fist in the air after chucking a Molotov cocktail, the acoustic take emphasizes the voices in unison, calmly furious at the stakes. The album closer “Modern Slaves” underscores the extraordinary power of responding to hopelessness by sitting down with your friends and making gorgeous music however you can.
