Aziza Brahim - live in London

7 September 2016

00:00

Aziza Brahim

Western Saharan musician/activist Aziza Brahim’s latest album 'Abbar el Hamada' (Across the Hamada; out now on Glitterbeat)) is a commanding and compassionate musical statement about, and for, the tumultuous age in which we live. Raised in a Saharawi refugee camp in the Algerian desert, and living in exile for more than two decades (first in Cuba and currently in Barcelona), Brahim’s life and music embodies both the tragedies and hopes of the present-day migrant and refugee experience.

On Thursday, 22 September 2016, Aziza and her band will be performing in the beautiful setting of London’s Union Chapel, as part of the 14th London African Music Festival. The festival (produced by Joyful Noise) is taking part 16 - 24 September 2016, when 12 concerts will be presented at six different venues across London.

Aziza Brahim's "Calles de Dajla"

As walls and borders are again being raised throughout Europe and other corners of the world, Aziza Brahim’s passionately sung poetic defiance, is especially timely and profound. “Los Muros” (The Walls), a dignified desert dreamscape; is emblematic of Aziza’s artistry. The lyrics morph from condemning the sand fortifications Morocco has erected along the Western Saharan border (to prevent the return of the Saharawi to their homeland), to a recognition that while walls are tragically universal, so is the imaginative spirit that encourages us to transcend them.

Another fleeting star was seen

Crossing the wall tonight,

Undetected by the radar,

Unnoticed by the guard.

On the land and the sea

The walls keep rising still.

Brahim’s previous album, the resplendent 'Soutak', made great strides towards spreading her message of liberation and resistance. 'Soutak' spent an unprecedented three months atop the World Music Charts Europe, and was the chart’s top album for 2014. The album was also selected as one of Songlines magazine’s “Top Ten” albums of the year and appeared on several other year-end critics lists. An appearance on the legendary BBC television programme 'Later ... with Jools Holland' (http://youtu.be/D-DI55sYvq8) further cemented her growing reputation, as did appearances on Cerys Matthews’ BBC Radio 6 Music show (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01y2m82), on the ‘World on 3’ programme on BBC Radio 3 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p027lpln), and on BBC’s ‘Africa Beats’ programme (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29020181).

Buoyed by this success, Aziza and her band toured extensively in Europe and beyond. 'Soutak' not only confirmed Brahim as the most important Saharawi musician of her generation, but it also gave evidence that she had become one of Africa’s most respected young musical voices.

Aziza Brahim

On 'Soutak' the musical nuances of Barcelona, her adopted home, were clearly audible. While these influences certainly have not vanished, on 'Abbar el Hamada', Aziza has consciously extended her reach deeper into the sounds of contemporary West Africa. This move has been reinforced by the introduction of Senegalese percussionist Sengane Ngom and drummer Aleix Tobias (who has studied drumming in Gambia and Senegal) into her band, and the return of Malian guitarist Kalilou Sangare from the 'Soutak' sessions. Bassist/arranger Guillem Aguilar and guitarist Ignasi Cussó also return from the previous band.

Recorded in Barcelona in the summer of 2015 with 'Soutak' producer Chris Eckman (Bassekou Kouyate, Tamikrest), 'Abbar el Hamada', is a wholly persuasive example of Brahim’s pan-musical vision and is her most compelling and varied album to date. “It is meant to be a diverse, powerful album,” she says, “where Saharawi traditional rhythms (such as Asarbat and Sharaa) are mixed with drums and rhythms from West Africa (particularly Senegal) and of course Mediterranean sounds and rhythms also.”

From the pulsing desert rock of “Calles De Dajla”, to the Afro-Cuban inflections of “La Cordillera Negra” (evoking 70’s recordings by the Super Rail Band) through the dusky elegance of “El Canto Del La Arena” and the raw balladry of “Mani” (featuring Malian blues-master Samba Toure on guitar), the music and lyrics on 'Abbar el Hamada' masterfully reflect the restless, imaginative search for home, explicit in the album’s title.

Hamada is the word used by the Saharawi people to describe the rocky desert landscape along the Algerian/Western Saharan frontier where tens of thousands of their people are stranded in purgatorial refugee camps. “For me, 'Abbar el Hamada' (Across the Hamada) is a title that synthesizes our destiny as a country over the last 40 years”, Aziza explains. “We are suffering an injustice that condemns us to try and survive in an environment as inhospitable as the Hamada.”

Aziza Brahim

When recently asked how she would best describe her musical mission and methods, Aziza’s reply was like her music; revealing and beautifully stated: “I’m not able to separate politics, cultural and personal concerns. So, the focus of my music is all of these areas at the same time. Political, because of its commitment to the denunciation of social injustice. Cultural, because it searches for new musical ideas. Personal, because it expresses the worries of a person that aspires to live with dignity in a better world.”

Innovation, naked truth, humility and political outcry: these are the raw materials of Aziza Brahim’s ever expanding musical vision. On her new album, 'Abbar el Hamada' she fuses and fashions these elements into an unforgettable work that is both deeply inspired and deeply inspiring.

Abbar el Hamada (Across the Hamada):

A look around me after forty years of occupation, of exile, of diaspora. A conversation. A discussion between emigrants, refugees and stationaries; between patriots, expatriates and the stateless; between placed, postponed and displaced; between nomads and the sedentary; between Saharan, sub-Saharan, north Saharan and Saharawis. A conversation between countries, between cultures, between generations, between tribes, between beliefs, between people. People with no other resources than the word, their voices and the skin of their hands and drums. With no other intention than to change the situation by means of music, by means of the imagination, even if it is barely for a moment. Through the fences, the barriers, the camps, the iron bars, the walls, the barbed wire, the seas, the mountain ranges, the rivers, the borders. Across the Hamada.

- Aziza Brahim