Mistletone

ETRAN DE L’AÏR TOUR DATES:
MARCH 9 + 10: WOMADELAIDE. Tickets on sale here.
+ more to be announced

“I love having a special evening with my brothers/
A moment when we’re all happy, smiling and drinking tea together”
– Etran de L’Aïr, “Erkimidiwane”

Mistletone proudly presents the debut Australian tour by Etran de L’Aïr, the STARS OF THE AÏR, the longest running wedding band in AGADEZ, capital of Tuareg guitar. With a new album of sun-schlazed desert sound, 100% SAHARA GUITAR, Etran de L’Aïr are ready to take on the world, with those swinging melodies, like a sandstorm blowing in from across the sea.

Etran de L’Aïr are 100% SAHARA, and that goes same for the band, all sons of AGADEZ, including brothers Moussa, Abdoulaye, and Abdourahamane, and their dear friend, the youngest of the group, Alghabid. All the brothers write and play guitar, swapping out instruments while Alghabid keeps the FOUR ON THE FLOOR.

Their first album, No.1, brought their music to critics and fans. Their second album, Agadez, sent them into the international touring circuit. And now they’re back to claim the throne, with their first studio album, 100% SAHARA GUITAR. And what a sound it is. Recorded in sunny studios on the WEST COAST, the brothers take that old Agadez sound to new levels, adding even more guitars into the mix, weaving layers of reverb-laden melodies and shimmering harmonies into a tapestry of sound. How much guitar can they fit into one record? The answer is 100%.

“It feels somehow wrong though to refer to the particularly vibrant brand of Tuareg rock played by Etran de L’Aïr as blues, desert or otherwise. There’s an exuberance in their adrenaline-fueled anthems and frenzied jams that resists the term. The band has its roots as a touring wedding band in central Niger, and the group’s songs more often than not feel buoyed by the ecstasy of celebration, conjuring scenes of late nights dancing beneath the desert stars. 100% Sahara Guitar is the clearest vision we’ve had yet of Etran de L’Aïr’s ability to evoke such experiences” – Aquarium Drunkard.

Etran de L’Aïr (or “stars of the Aïr region”) welcomes you to Agadez, the capital city of Saharan rock. Playing for over 25 years, Etran has emerged as stars of the local wedding circuit. Beloved for their dynamic repertoire of hypnotic solos and sun schlazed melodies, Etran stakes out a place for Agadez guitar music. Playing a sound that invokes the desert metropolis, “Agadez” celebrates the sounds of all the dynamism of a hometown wedding.

Etran is a family band composed of brothers and cousins, all born and raised in the small neighborhood of Abalane, just in the shadow of the grand mosque. Sons of nomadic families that settled here in the 1970s fleeing the droughts, they all grew up in Agadez. The band was formed in 1995 when current band leader Moussa “Abindi” Ibra was only 9 years old. “We only had one acoustic guitar,” he explains, “and for percussion, we hit a calabash with a sandal.” Over the decades, the band painstakingly pieced together gear to form their band and built an audience by playing everywhere, for everyone. “It was difficult. We would walk to gigs by foot, lugging all our equipment, carrying a small PA and guitars on our backs, 25 kilometers into the bush, to play for free…there’s nowhere in Agadez we haven’t played.”

From the days of the Trans-Saharan caravan in the 14th century to a modern-day stopover for Europe-bound migrants, Agadez is a city that stands at the crossroads, where people and ideas come together. Understandably, it’s here where one of the most ambitious Tuareg guitar has taken hold. Agadez’s style is the fastest, with frenetic electric guitar solos, staccato crash of full drum kits, and flamboyant dancing guitarists. Agadez is the place where artists come to cut their teeth in a lucrative and competitive winner-take-all scene. Guitar bands are an integral part of the social fabric, playing in weddings, baptisms, and political rallies, as well as the occasional concert.

Whereas other Tuareg guitarists look to Western rock, Etran de L’Aïr play in a pan-African style that is emblematic of their hometown, citing a myriad of cultural influences, from Northern Malian blues, Hausa bar bands, to Congolese Soukous. It’s perhaps this quality that makes them so beloved in Agadez. “We play for the Tuareg, the Toubou, the Zarma, the Hausa,” Abindi explains. “When you invite us, we come and play.” Their music is rooted in celebration, and invokes the exuberance of an Agadez wedding, with an overwhelming abundance of guitars, as simultaneous solos playfully pass over one another with a restrained precision, forceful yet never overindulgent.

Recorded at home in Agadez with a mobile studio, their eponymous album stays close to the band’s roots. Over a handful of takes, in a rapid-fire recording session, “Agadez” retains all the energy of a party. Their message too is always close to home. Tchingolene (“Tradition”) recalls the nomad camps, with a modern take on traditional takamba rhythms transposed to guitars. The dreamy ballad Toubouk Ine Chihoussay (“The Flower of Beauty”) dives into call and response lyrics, and solos that dance effortlessly over the frets. On other tracks like Imouwizla (“Migrants”), Etran addresses immigration with the driving march parallels the nomads’ plight with travelers crossing the desert for Europe. Yet even at its most serious, Etran’s music is engaged and dynamic, reminding us that music can transmit a message while lighting up a celebration. This is music for dancing, after all.