L'Orchestre National de Mauritanie
Sahel Sounds L'Orchestre National de Mauritanie -LP- (MR,60s-70s,comp.2013)****
Mauritania, a country lying underneath Morocco, next to Western Sahara, left to Mali, also had its own traditional music mixture and modal system, during its early existence of its post-colonial form (1968-1975) it also know a creative band under lead of Hadrami Ould Meidah under the guidance of the Bembeya Jazz, a National Orchestra which was an example for the country of possibilities. The band knew a foundation of African bass and electric guitars, a brass section and some singers. The band released a few, now extremely rare 7” singles, besides there were recorded a few live performances and radio recordings. Nearly all recordings had been destroyed during the coup d’état of 1978, which tended to destroy everything from the previous Daddah regime, including the radio archives. Lucklily, one clever radio engineer was able to save some reels of the orchestra, which he kept save for all these years. They now have been re-released for the first time, LP and digital only.
The style is a mixture of a calm and relaxed band with rock, jazz and Afro influences. Most track are led by deep bass, soft rhythms and jangling guitar led foundations, The first song is a mixture of a recognisable song structure but has also some small, in this track only, somewhat off-key arabesque fantasies. Other singers respond. On the second track we also hear flute improvisation. The track I heard before (the previously released reissue of the label I think). The singing on this track could fit well with the Ethiopian music from the 70s. The band speeds up the song after a while with rhythmical guitars mixed with flute. The track after that is the second track previously reissued before (see above). On “La Femme Mauritanienne” the brass leads with a relaxed rhythm. There’s room for a small creative exotic jangling electric guitar improvisation, before the brass or singer leads the melody again. On the next track we hear a happier marching band brass band intro, a song with arabesque fantasies in the singing. The rhythms are a bit Afro-Latin-like. Also hear are nice latin-like guitar solos, still with a relaxed rhythm with no rush. The brass band returns with the melodic theme. “Douga-Sosso” is a nice combination of a melody of brass with guitars with the song, and a deep bass rhythm, with an attractive and recognisable, emotional song line. The song speeds up a bit, more Latin-like with more echoing electric guitar improvisation to. The last track continues in a very slow rhythm and sounds like a fragment of a larger section. This record very much completes the picture of creative African music.
