Bombino
Nomad

Difficult night.

Thoughts intertwine, chase each other. Stale air, I have to open the window and let in some new music. Not exactly brand new, let's say unusual to my ears.

Yes, of course Tinariwen first and foremost, but there are differences. More suffering, real pain. Even though…

The production is entrusted to an old fox – Dan Auerbach – who milked it, as surely as this crappy green tea that supposedly detoxifies, bah.

Yet his life has been tough, he has stories to tell, crossing the desert, the stench of sheep, and camels. The blinding sun. Maybe he fights. Born in 1980.

You’re a child, you look like a child, you sound like a child. Ok, that will be my name, almost.

Bombino.

And I sing in tamasheq, a damn Arabic language, and obviously incomprehensible to most. But I sing with the guitar, and that language many understand. Go check out Niamey jam where I sing like Hendrix, but I play myself, my own life. Can I be a trickster and do all this just to please the infidels? To make them reach out and (hopefully) give me dollars, euros—whatever I need to make my voice heard? Maybe.

Rocchenrolle is the universal language everyone can understand, that brings fresh air into the rooms of these western morons, that demands to be heard for its eternal youth and it intoxicates and exhausts you at the same time. I’d love for there to be a real story behind it, made of work, sweat, stench of animals, tents and sun, so much sun. Who knows if it’s really like that. And then, what do I expect? And why?

This is a good record, I don’t know if it’s the best, I don’t know what he’s talking about, I’m not even sure if Omar Moctar from Agadez, Niger, Tuareg, Berber and shepherd, is even real. But from the way it all sounds, he sure seems to be.

Music to be listened to with your skin, to touch, to savor the scents it gives off, to feel the strength it emits.

That’s all.

Sorry if it’s not much.