Tamikrest at Musashino Swing Hall, October 1st 2019

I first became aware of Tochumaren, the music made in the North Africa by the Touareg people, when I watched the Glastonbury documentary directed by Julien Temple. It was quite a sight at the time to see a rock band donning those strictly traditional clothes you’ll associate with people living in the Sahara region rocking that hard. The first thing that will grab you is the guitar tone which is piercing and full of body like a great wine. Then it’s the groove, the kind of groove that will make any kind of head bopping unavoidable. From then on the journey through that infectious world of Tochumaren is endless.

The band I saw in the movie was Tinariwen and I’ve been fortunate to catch them live a few times, always an amazing show. But this time i got to see a different band from the genre that has also won accolades from critics all over the world, Tamikrest. They’ve released 4 studio albums with the most recent being Kidal from 2017, a record that made it to the prestigious Mojo Magazine top 50 albums of the year list. Unlike their elders from Tinariwen they include a drumset in their configuration aiming for an even more hard hitting sound without shedding any of that deep melancholia the genre is all about. This show was a testament to the effectiveness of their approach. 

Luckily the venue was just a twenty minutes walk from my house, first time ever I’ve been to a show that close to home since I’ve been living here. Got there on time and checked their stacked merch table. The venue itself is a small seated one, like a concert hall for jazz music, and I’m guessing that some, if not most, of the attendees were subscribers. I sat between a lady that was probably in her sixties and a mom with two young girls, those kids couldn’t have been more than ten years old. They were lots of older salary men and retirees from the West Tokyo area as well. I thought to myself, “talk about a tough crowd”.

It kind of was, indeed. When they first came out on stage I got the impression the band sensed it that way too. But they didn’t compromise one bit because they were loud. I wore my earplugs, I don’t know how this people around me did it without them. It kind of felt like those clips you see of Iggy Pop performing at the Letterman show. There’s a sense of mismatch there. But just like Iggy used to do in those talk shows, Tamikrest captured and conquered.

The process was slow with the first couple of songs. I’m sure that rocking sound, that’s been called the electric blues of the Sahara, was not what some of the members of the audience were expecting. But remember how I said that head bopping was unavoidable? Well, by the third song you could see must of the audience moving their heads in unison. Then came the handclaps following the beat and from that point on it was on. Aghaly Ag Mohamedine, the djembe player grabbed a guitar and took over lead vocal duties for one song that got everyone going and it was done. After 45 minutes the band set their instruments in their stands and left the stage.

I was shocked, “only 45 minutes?” Then I realized I was at a concert hall and the obligatory intermission was about to take place. That’s how entrancing Tamikrest’s first half of their set was. It made me forget of all the environment issues I was worried about at the beginning. Ousmane Ag Mossa’s lead vocals posses that deadpan quality in the threshold between soulful, heartfelt melancholia and cheerful elation. His baritone perfectly suits both the upbeat numbers and the slower jams. His guitar soloing is impeccable and it seems effortless.

The fist half of the set hit hard, but the second one was a knockout. We got some of the more reggae influenced numbers on this one, which lead to several interactions between Check Ag Biglia on bass and Nicolas Grupp on drums that reminded me of the spareness of drums and bass in dub, an alternative way for this type of music to evoke the desert. Both of these musicians were top class and they a got a chance to test their chops with a couple of tasty solos. Speaking of evoking wast landscapes, Paul Salvagnac on guitar added an economical drony and atmospheric sound that was also definitely a key ingredient in the mix.

There were several invitations to dance on the aisles by the band, “je pense c’est possible”; but it wasn’t until the last song of the set when he whole audience finally got up, clapped and danced all over. I’m telling you, it was quite a sight to see this bunch engaging on that kind of festive behavior. The band returned for an encore, Djanegh Etoumast, off of their third album Chatma, and that’s were they reached their climax. In the last couple of minutes of the forty minutes second half they kept accelerating faster and faster as the audience tried to keep up with their handclaps until the end. I know the lady next to me did, same with the two young girl on the other side. They were jumping and clapping. Their joy was a reminder of the unifying power of music that sees no racial or cultural boundaries. That’s the beauty of the communal experience of live music and for this evening I need to thank Tamikrest for that.
  
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