Goumour Almoctar, 44, found his nickname Bombino and especially the Montreal audience as the headliner of this evening where the Tuareg guitarist and his three accomplices played a rock-tinged blues from Niger, always carried by the tormented feeling that bursts from his strings.
No superfluous effects, Bombino is determined to break the internal barriers that grip him with songs that speak to us deeply. Against a backdrop of geopolitics, the themes of the new album Sahel are evacuated with the help of brief ecstasies of cosmic blues, a question of overcoming the insults of the fate of his own.
We live for the people of Agadez through songs that are mostly shaped around a fatal riff. A few songs from his previous albums have slipped into the list of songs that the emblematic African figure modifies from one concert to another, according to the moods and the audiences.
At these precise moments, the crowd is more contemplative than dancing, even if the quartet’s incantations can veer into excess and cause some rotations of the pelvis. The four gunners are masters of the place and masters of this joust without rules, like an unknown passport.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Bombino surrounded by his accomplices
The repetition of the themes of this singular trance music is assumed, the solos are not as corrosive as those of the young prodigy Mdou Moctar who flourishes in this same musical soil, but this cohesion of the group is infallible, it gives you chills! We observe the human mass nodding their heads in approval in front of the big stage of the festival.
A great catch by the organizers, who know how to mix flavors and alternate genres, between Latin, African and Caribbean music, desert blues had all its relevance at the top of the bill! Bombino is also stopping at the Festif! in Baie-Saint-Paul on July 18 and, by happy coincidence, the Touaregs of Tinariwen will be in town on July 30.
“We celebrate Africa!”
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Lionel Kizaba on the TD–Radio-Canada stage, Tuesday evening
Just after the excitement caused by the show by Haitian Jean Jean Roosevelt and preceding that of Bombino, the Radio-Canada Revelation in world music 2024-2025, Lionel Kizaba, champion of Afro-futurism or more precisely of Afro-Congolese electro, returned to Nuits d’Afrique pumped up on the momentum of Kizavibehis most recent album released in 2022 and which received several nominations at the Juno gala this year.
“Tonight, we celebrate Africa!” he said as an introduction. Accompanied by a beatmakertwo guitarists and two dancers, Kizaba sings in French, in English, but also in Lingala and Kikongo, music made in a hurry.
With Lionel Kizaba, we know we’re going to dance, and that’s exactly what happened. However, he hasn’t lost any of his firepower! The drummer, percussionist and singer sent his musical hybrid into orbit with a happy compromise between driving power and sophistication. The audience didn’t need asking twice to raise their arms to the sky several times. With such a global proposition and the feline touch of his approach, the observation is clear: Kizaba is boiling with vital energy, a true showman.
A mythical instrument
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Tacfarinas Kichou presenting his darbouka on Tuesday evening
Percussionist and luthier Tacfarinas Kichou, a Montrealer by adoption and Algerian by origin, is a leading expert on the darbouka (or derbouka, depending on your point of view), this Middle Eastern percussive instrument that has transcended cultures. Under a small marquee that serves as an acoustic Cabaret and in a friendly atmosphere despite the rain, Kichou gave us a demonstration of the legendary instrument.
We learn in particular that he painted Andalusian motifs on his instrument and he demonstrates the sounds with energetic flights fueled by clusters of notes and jerky rolls on the taut skin of his instrument. We applaud the educational vocation of the festival with this series of very appropriate workshops.