Celtic Connections
Ezza, Drygate
FOUR STARS
Even all these years after Tinariwen first brought their desert blues to these shores it can still come as a novelty to see a musician in Saharan robes strapping on a Fender Telecaster. It’s even more of a novelty when the musician’s head-dress contains a pop-up centre-piece that he can trigger at will and makes him look in profile like a Roman centurion, not to mention a chicken.
As with Tinariwen, Ezza singer-guitarist Omar Adam Goumour is a Tuareg from the nomadic confederation. He too has social points to make in his music and as his head-dress suggests he’s happy to take the fun route but without trivialising his statements. Songs calling for an end to female circumcision and forced marriage and making the case for improved education for children are couched in some of the most infectious grooves you’re likely to hear, and a plea for peace is no less impassioned for the skipping, slippery, ear-catching shuffle that drummer Stephane Gratteau propels it with.
The trio – Algerian bass guitarist Menad Moussaoui makes up the superbly compact unit – are based in Toulouse but are clearly very much in touch with their African roots, even if Gratteau is an honorary Tuareg. His drumming plays a major part in the group’s appeal, giving each song its own flowing rhythmical identity as Goumour and Moussaoui’s guitars interlock with kora-like riffs and judicious looping from the former and much effective use of the Jaco Pastorius slam and down-stroke method, as well as punchy, precise fingering from Moussaoui. By the end, we were all, like Gratteau, honorary Tuaregs and all emphatically, and engagingly, coached in the pronunciation of Alkher (Peace).
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