Review: Mdou Moctar at The Rechabite

Mdou Moctar at The Rechabite
w/ Yomi Ship
Thursday, March 2, 2023

Perth Festival has come out guns blazing in a post-COVID 2023, delivering a sterling selection of Australian and international artists in one of its best line-ups ever. Buried a bit in the mix, but certainly not forgotten, is one of its most intriguing propositions. Mdou Moctar, the performing pseudonym of Tuareg songwriter and musician Mahamadou Souleymane, is as authentic as they come. Hailing from Niger, Souleymane has taken the traditional guitar music of his homeland and set the dial to 11, lashing this unique brand of ‘desert blues’ with swathes of electrified guitar psychedelia.

Opening proceedings were beloved Perth proggers Yomi Ship, sitting on the opposite end of the guitar-based spectrum but showcasing the strength of strings just as strongly. The band was incredibly tight, a quality required to play their knotty pieces which balanced post rock bombast with the jittery twists and turns of math rock. An ambient interlude gave way to the ringing arpeggios of Kawataro Spring and the three-piece took flight from there, sharp as a wire as they traversed some entrancing quiet/loud dynamics. Other highlights included the snaking, foreboding Seamonkey and the jazzy Memory Man which interspersed a steady groove against some very tricky cleanly plucked riffage.

Come time for Mdou’s Moctar’s entrance, the venue was full in what was a sold out show. The band struck a distinctive look as they came on to raucous applause. They were decked out in their traditional heavy robes and white turbans, a functional get-up that’s a requirement for the beating desert heat of their homeland. The sun may not have been shining this night but the band made up for it by generating their own heat.

The band opened with blistering trills before launching into Asdikte Akal, a song that laid the groundwork for what was to follow. It was underpinned by an unrelenting trance-inducing beat and distortion-laden guitar riffage. Atop that were the band’s beautiful, chanted vocals, all sung in the traditional tongue and often functioning as hypnotic, hyper-speed lullabies. The vocals were a bit buried under the mix initially but came through as the show progressed. Indeed, Mdou’s only English-spoken moment of the night was to request the reverb be turned down – from there he stayed modest and let the music do the talking.

The show was a guitar lover’s dream and featured a crosscut of the band’s big tunes. Mdou’s guitar of choice was naturally a Strat as he summoned the unhinged energy of a modern day Jimi Hendrix by way of the Sahara. Kamane Tarharin generated some serious steam and showcased how far Mdou could go with his fingerpicked guitar technique as he launched into the stratosphere with several searing solos. Favourite Ilana was ramped up to giddy levels and had the crowd entranced, and Afrique Victime also received a kick in the butt live with its whipping beat driving the music to a fever pitch. Wiwasharnine was euphoric, and the definitive Chismiten was a tour de force as expected. More recent track Nakanegh Dich opened to flurry of Hendrix-inspired distortion before settling into its groove, with Mdou’s frenzied soloing foregoing technique for sheer excitement as he attacked his Strat like a man possessed. The rhythm section was as equal a star as Mdou himself. The drummer’s ability to keep time while peppering each track with cascading fills was extraordinary, and the bass work was intoxicating, especially the use of looping vamps over each track’s most hypnotic moments.

Come the end, the crowd shuffled out wide-eyed to an atmosphere similar to a rave after the lights come on. It had all the hallmarks of one in what was Perth Festival’s sweatiest, grittiest and most hypnotic night of music. A performance not soon forgotten.

MATIJA ZIVKOVIC

Photos by Cam Campbell