★Sahel Sounds

Some of the most intense music we've ever heard from the Mali scene – a set that takes the older takamba rhythms, but gives them a propulsive feel from lots of fast percussion and guitar lines – all served up with little other instrumentation at a…

Amazing cosmic synth from late-80s Niger. An aural relaxation manual, somewhere between ambient library music and minimal wave, throwing ancient Saharan folk ballads deep into the future. Polyphonic analog synthesizers and drum machines interpret a…

Mammane Sani Abdullaye's 'La Musique Electronique Du Niger' is a spellbinding side of organ pieces written and released on cassette in 1978 and plucked from obscurity a few years back by Sahel Sounds' Christopher Kirkley. Born to a relatively well-to…