Afrique, la rock alternative

Tendance. Foals, Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer… Plusieurs groupes anglo-saxons dans le vent puisent une partie de leurs influences sur le continent noir. Ambient, new wave ou punk croisent hi-life et afro-beat.

Quand l’Upper West Side new-yorkais fraie avec le souk congolais, et qu’Oxford titille la polyrythmie ghanéenne, l’underground délocalise ses oreilles sur le continent africain pour mieux satisfaire sa soif de fraîcheur musicale. On avait connu la prise d’assaut de la péninsule indienne avec Asian Dub Foundation et la redoutable M.I.A, fusionnant electro, drum n’bass, jungle, avec un zeste de folklore indo-pakistanais. Ailleurs, les Brésiliens CSS et Bonde do Rolê ont mis à l’ordre du jour le funk carioca.

Polyrythmie. Mais alors que les promoteurs de ces fusions culturelles avaient tous plus ou moins un pied sur leur continent d’origine avant de s’exporter en Occident, voici cette fois l’exubérante polyrythmie africaine véhiculée par des gamins bercés par le rock indé, britannique ou américain. Kora sénégalaise, souk congolais, kuduro angolais, benga kenyan… les genres abondent. A l’origine de ces dérives : le hi-life. Né au Ghana et en Sierra Leone dans les années 20,c’est la première fusion entre mélodies occidentales et rythmiques tribales, combinant cuivres jazzy, guitare, batterie, basse, harmonica et accordéon. Des groupes comme The Tempos et The Black Beats ont contribué à populariser le hi-life dans les années 50, avant qu’il n’aboutisse à l’afrobeat ou au juju.

Aujourd’hui conjugué au post-punk (Foals), partie prenante d’un patchwork ambient (Yeasayer) ou encore choyé par quelques guitares (Vampire Weekend), le hi-life n’en est pourtant pas à sa première introduction dans l’indé occidental. Cités comme références, Paul Simon et son multiprimé Graceland - enregistré en plein apartheid à Johannesburg, précurseur de la world music -, David Byrne des Talking Heads, le producteur Brian Eno, ou, plus récemment, Damon Albarn, le leader de Blur, qui multiplie notamment les échanges avec le Mali. «On a tous grandi pendant que la planète rapetissait, autant sur un aspect économique que culturel : les médias nous donnent accès à n’importe quel endroit du monde en cliquant sur deux boutons», explique Ira Wolf Tuton, guitariste de Yeasayer. Et la curiosité fait le reste pour retrouver la matière première : radios, blogs, vieux disquaires… et enseignement supérieur. Comme pour Joanna Newsom, étudiante en musicologie, bien vite obsédée par les progressions de la kora et de la harpe africaines ; ou encore Ian Eagleson, docteur en ethnomusicologie kenyane, cofondateur du groupe Extra Golden.

Quand les érudits prolongent leurs recherches sur scène, d’autres se fient au hasard. «Sans le savoir, on jouait déjà de la guitare d’une façon assez similaire au hi-life , résume Yanis Philippakis, le chanteur de Foals. En fait, on cherchait juste quelque chose de nouveau à incorporer dans notre musique.» De fait, autoproclamés «vampires culturels», ces têtes chercheuses qui viennent de sortir leur premier album tentent le grand écart entre Tom Petty, Marvin Gaye, Mulatu Astatke et Konono n°1.

Contours. «Le défi, c’est de partir de ce patchwork d’influences pour faire quelque chose de nouveau avec. On essaie simplement d’élargir notre inspiration dans le but de réinterpréter ce que l’on voit comme étant de la musique pop», explique Ira Wolf Tuton. Le hi-life permet alors de redessiner les contours de la pop. Yannis Philippakis, de Foals, revendique cependant une démarche «plus intuitive» : «On aime créer à partir de textures disparates, fusionner des éléments culturellement différents dans un format pop. Créer quelque chose qui continue de communiquer à un niveau non intellectuel, en utilisant parfois des références occultes.»

Mystique. «Les communautés cherchent à partager une émotion particulière et, pour ce faire, combinent leurs forces pour donner à cette émotion une intensité de plus en plus grande. C’est ce qui m’excite avec la voix, l’idée de communier»,expose encore Ira Wolf Tuton, au nom de Yeasayer. Mais la connotation mystique ne séduit pas tous les groupes de néo-afro-pop, à commencer par Vampire Weekend. «Il faut veiller à ne pas opposer un Occident logique et moderne, au reste du monde, ancien et superstitieux», développe Ezra Koenig, chanteur du groupe américain, qui vient d’ailleurs d’enregistrer une chanson avec Esau Mwamwaya, du Malawi ( «il était vraiment très ouvert d’esprit»). De même, Foals a collaboré avec les Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra et Ira Wolf Tuton se déclare durablement marqué par un voyage effectué jadis en Tunisie («une expérience incroyable») .

Louanges. Les groupes afro-pop se partagent aujourd’hui les louanges médiatiques, à l’image de Vampire Weekend, auréolé avant même la sortie de son premier album, arrivé dans les bacs que depuis quelques semaines. La bannière de cette mouvance, foncièrement disparate sur la forme (ambient, new wave, folk, souk, punk…), se justifie avant tout par une démarche similaire d’ouverture d’esprit, d’innovation musicale et un fonds rythmique et vocal tiré du hi-life, donnant une forme d’enthousiasme susceptible de faire chavirer les scènes occidentales.

MATHILDE CARTON

Sa Ding Ding: China's next major export?

Scanning The Independent the other day, we came across a piece about a gloriously named singer called 萨顶顶 (Sa Ding Ding) that caught our eye. Born to a Mongolian mother and Han Chinese father, the article calls her a 'former Mongolian nomad' who is 'poised to sweep the globe' with her blend of traditional folk sounds and dance music. Intrigued, we had a hunt on Baidu's ever-reliable MP3 search engine (not that Shanghaiist condones illegal downloading of course) and found that searching for her name in characters returns quite a few results.

Singing in Tibetan, Sanskrit, Lagu, and a Sigur Rós-style made-up language, Sa Ding Ding's music reminds Shanghaiist of the sort of thing Nitin Sawhney has been doing for years — folky warbling vocals and traditional instruments set to low-fi dance beats — but her music is certainly an interesting departure from the wave of bubblegum pop groups found on most Chinese radio stations (as much as we love S.H.E. and Jolin Tsai). People are already talking about her as the next Björk — although that's perhaps not the most favourable of comparisons in China right now — or the next Enya — a really unfavourable comparison in Shanghaiist's eyes.

To be honest, at first we found her songs a bit grating, but the more we listen, the more they are growing on us and a few tracks in particular stand out — '万物生' ('Alive'), '锡林河边的老人' ('Oldster by Xilian River'), '飞鸟和花' ('Flickering with Blossoms'). We reckon it's Sunday morning listening or the sort of thing you'd hear playing in an organic café somewhere but someone over at music industry monolith Universal is banking on Ding Ding going really big — with a series of high profile performances scheduled throughout the summer.

She will travel to London this week where she is hotly tipped to celebrate the re-release of her album '万物生' ('Alive') by walking away with a BBC Radio 3 World Music Award. Such recognition is highly coveted by artists who fall under that most ridiculously entitled of genres, 'World Music' (to be fair to the Beeb they regionalise it), and Ding Ding's record company is planning to use her UK appearance as a launch pad for her re-released album, following it with a series of performances — including WOMAD and the Royal Albert Hall — before bringing her back to Beijing for a special concert during the Olympics, when they suspect there may be a few journalists milling about in the capital.

Given all the fuss then, you may well be hearing a lot more from Sa Ding Ding in the near future.

For more info, check her official site.

By Jake Newby

State Radio

(...) The Boston-based trio State Radio, which is touring in support of its new CD, “Year of the Crow.” The band’s sophomore album was released digitally in September, when it debuted at No. 9 on iTunes Alternative Charts, and had its physical release to stores in February via Ruff Shod Records. Recorded with Tchad Blake (Pearl Jam, Peter Gabriel, Soul Coughing) at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Wiltshire, England, the album features the single “Gang of Thieves” and captures the band’s live energy and spirit. The band’s song “Keepsake” was featured on the Nov. 19 finale of Showtime’s hit series “Weeds.” Having recently performed at the Langerado Music Festival in Florida and this year’s SXSW, the band also is slated to make appearances at some of America’s biggest summer festivals, including Bonnaroo, Wakarusa, Rothbury and Summerfest.

China's Sa Dingding in line for World Music award

China's folk fusion queen Sa Dingding has been nominated for a prestigious World Music award by BBC Radio. The multi-talented singer, songwriter, instrumentalist and choreographer is expected to attend the awards ceremony, which will take place in London on April 10.

In a busy spring and summer promoting her album Alive, Sa Dingding has two more UK dates planned. She is in the line-up for the July 25 – 27 World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) festival in Malmesbury, Wiltshire and is also scheduled to perform at a Promenade concert in London's Royal Albert Hall. The Promenade concerts, usually known as the Proms, are Britain's leading classical music festival.

Sa Dingding's striking performances combine Buddhist influences with elements from China's indigenous minority cultures. Born to a Han Chinese father and a Mongolian mother, the twenty-five year old sings in Mandarin, Tibetan, Sanskrit and Lahu (a language spoken in south-west China's Yunnan Province) as well as penning lyrics in her own, invented language. She plays several classical Chinese instruments including the zheng, a type of zither, and the horse-head fiddle.

Critics see Sa Dingding's creative combination of traditional music and electronic beats as a welcome change from the usual Chinese fare of derivative pop jingles and bland hip-hop. She may be poised to make the elusive leap from national fame to international stardom using her British dates as a springboard.

(China.org.cn April 3, 2008) By John Sexton

Africa unite

Zanzibar's legendary Bi Kidude in As Old as My Tongue

Vues d'Afrique film festival showcases a continent in crisis

Africans have long complained the only images the West sees of Africa are those of drought, famine, poverty, AIDS and civil war. Well, don't expect Montreal's 24th annual Vues d'Afrique film festival to change that view much.

Even the opening film, Délice Paloma, written and directed by acclaimed Algerian filmmaker Nadir Moknèche, isn't your typical feel-good movie. Délice Paloma, which shocked audiences in conservative Algeria last year, is a flick about scams, con artists, sex workers and homosexuality in modern-day Algiers starring national treasure Biyouna as a whore called Madame Aldjeria (Algeria), whose newest recruit, Paloma, is dubbed "Délice" (Sweet).

Another much-anticipated film, the Rwanda-Korea-American co-production Munyurangabo, tells the story of two friends in post-genocide Kigali, one a Hutu, the other a Tutsi, and their falling out over tribal lines when the going gets tough. My problem with this plodding film by first-time feature film director Lee Isaac Chung is that the 35mm film is way too grainy, too slow and 20 minutes too long.

Music lovers will adore the hour-long British documentary As Old as My Tongue about legendary Zanzibari singer Bi Kidude, who continued singing into her 90s against the widespread wishes of Muslim conservatives in her native Zanzibar. The camera follows the dirt-poor Kidude as she tours Western Europe, winding down with her appearance at Peter Gabriel's WOMAD Festival in London. A remarkable film about a remarkable woman.

The NFB also figures prominently at the fest, notably Ottawa-born director Dana Inkster's terrific doc Twenty-Four Days in Brooks, about the split among whites and visible-minority immigrants striking at Alberta's Lakeside Packers, one of the largest slaughterhouses in the world.

My hands-down favourite film at the fest this year is the awesome NFB doc Dieu a-t-il quitte l'Afrique? about five young Senegalese men desperately hoping to find work in Europe, but unable to escape Africa. Directed by Musa Diengi Kala, who used to run Youssou N'Dour's Dakar recording studio, this is a beautifully shot, tightly wound, riveting work with a superb soundtrack that attacks not just the pillaging West, but African leaders for their abdication of duty. This is a film that will stay with you long after the cinema lights go up.

Overall, this year's edition of Vues d'Afrique is a steady-as-she-goes edition, although it'd be great to see more English-language films and the introduction of a bilingual festival program guide. Maybe next year.

Vues d'Afrique
At various theatres in Montreal, April 10 to 20
www.vuesdafrique.org

Richard Burnett

Human Rights Video in a Participatory Culture

One of our goals at the Center for Future Civic Media is to identify best practices from existing projects which might inform those initiatives which will emerge from the Center. We want to understand how people out there are using the tools available to them right now to enhance civic awareness, to play informal watchdog functions within the culture, to call attention to problems and force governments and other institutions to respond, to skirt around censorship and other kinds of regulation over communication, and so forth. (...)

Last week, on my personal blog and on the Future Civic Media Blog we've been featuring an interview with Sam Gregory, Program Director at Witness, a human rights organization founded by Peter Gabriel in the late 1980s, designed to put cameras into the hands of everyday people around the world so that they can document abuses by authorities. The organization emerged in the aftermath of the Rodney King video, which had sparked much greater public awareness of police brutality in the United States, and the hope was to create what Gregory refers to as a "participatory panopticon," as the wide spread availability of media production tools and the expansion of a distribution network for digital video makes it possible for people to record and transmit their own experiences of abuse. (...)

From Rodney King to Burma: An Interview with Witness's Sam Gregory (Part One)

(...) an you tell us something about the thinking which led to the creation of WITNESS? How has your organization's vision shifted over time in response to shifts in the nature of participatory culture?

In the late 1980's, our founder, Peter Gabriel had been participating in the Amnesty Human Rights Now Tour, travelling the world and meeting human rights activists at each concert stop. And in many cases, it struck him that their stories were not being heard, and that new tools like the consumer video-camera could perhaps change that. Fast-forward a couple of years, and the Rodney King incident brought the possibilities home. From the window of his apartment George Holliday filmed a sequence of graphic human rights violations that generated massive media attention. That provided the impetus for the creation of WITNESS - founded in the assumption that if you could place cameras in the hands of the people who chose to be "in the wrong place at the right time", i.e. human rights advocates and activists around the world living and working with communities affected by violations, then you would enable a new way to mobilize action for real change. (...)

Our founder, Peter Gabriel talks sometimes about "little brothers" and "little sisters" watching Big Brother, and this world of the 'participatory panopticon' as Jamais Cascio calls it - is one filled with emancipatory potential as long as we can make sure that the footage that circulates helps facilitate voice and change, rather than enable repression.(...)

Blog Entries by Henry Jenkins

Big Blue Ball !

Big Blue Ball (Limited Edition 150 Gram Blue Vinyl: 2LP)

Big Blue Ball

Limited Edition blue vinyl – 1000 copies. An album of all-star international collaborations which grew from "recording weeks" at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in the early 1990's. Featuring Peter Gabriel, Karl Wallinger, Joseph Arthur, Sinead O’Connor, Papa Wemba, Natacha Atlas, Holmes Brothers, Hukwe Zawose and more. Produced by Gabriel, Wallinger (World Party) and Stephen Hague (Pet Shop Boys, New Order). TRACK LISTING: 1. Whole Thing (Original Mix) featuring Francis Bebey, Alex Faku, Tim Finn, Peter Gabriel, Karl Walllinger, Andy White 2. Habibe featuring Natacha Atlas, Hossam Ramzy, Neil Sparkes 3. Shadow featuring Juan Cañizares, Papa Wemba 4. altus silva featuring Joseph Arthur, Ronan Browne, Deep Forest, James McNally, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Vernon Reid 5. Exit Through You featuring Joseph Arthur, Peter Gabriel, Karl Wallinger 6. Everything Comes From You featuring Richard Evans, Joji Hirota, Sevara Nazarkhan, Sinead O’Connor, Guo Yue 7. Burn You Up, Burn You Down featuring Billy Cobham, Peter Gabriel, The Holmes Brothers, Wendy Melvoin, Arona N’diaye, Jah Wobble 8. Forest featuring Levon Minassian, Arona N’Diaye, Vernon Reid, Hukwe Zawose 9. Rivers featuring Vernon Reid, Marta Sebestyen, Karl Wallinger 10. Jijy featuring Arona N’Diaye, Rossy, Jah Wobble 11. Big Blue Ball featuring Peter Gabriel, Manu Katché, Karl Wallinger

Beauty triumphs throughout Daniel Lanois album

Daniel Lanois - Here Is What Is
(Red Floor Records, 2008)

The new album by Canadian-born Daniel Lanois is a soundtrack to his film of the same name. The documentary is described by Lanois as a "travelogue of his life over the past year." He is on a quest for the "source of art, rather than everything that surrounds it." The film includes appearances by U2, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Sinead O'Connor and Aaron Neville, among others.

In addition to his work as a celebrated composer and performer Lanois is best known as a producer. He has received 10 Grammys and five Junos and was responsible for producing landmark albums including U2's Joshua Tree, Unforgettable Fire, Achtung Baby, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and All That You Can't Leave Behind; Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind; Peter Gabriel's So and Us; Willie Nelson's Teatro; and the soundtrack to Billy Bob Thornton's Slingblade.

The music on Here Is What Is is a collection of startlingly powerful music, including grooves, atmospheres and other soundscapes. Some tracks feature dialogue from the film. Frequent collaborators are gathered together including Brian Eno, Garth Hudson (the Band), and drummer Brian Blade.

This May Be My Last Time is a powerful gospel-infused performance featuring Brian Blade's father and his Zionist Baptist Church in Shreveport, La.

Lovechild features Garth Hudson improvising on piano and Lanois playing his trademark ethereal pedal steel (which he calls his "church in a suitcase").

Sacred and Secular is spine-chilling as Eno, Lanois and Blade engage in a rich musical dialogue.

Other highlights include Joy (with its Hammond B3), Blue Bus and Bells of Oaxaca.

Daniel Lanois is clearly in a league of his own with this music. Beauty triumphs throughout the album, leaving the listener begging for more and running to the store to buy the accompanying DVD.

Posted By David Reed

Emmanuel Jal Joins MtVu's "Turn It Up" Fight Against Darfur Genocide

"War Child" Feature Documentary Part of Tribeca Film Festival's Line-Up. Jal's "Warchild" Digital Track Now Available on iTunes

Former Sudanese child soldier turned international hip-hop artist EMMANUEL JAL will be part of "Turn It Up," mtvU's month-long "leaks" and music video premieres promotion to fight against the Darfur Genocide. Launched in partnership with STAND, a Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, Jal will join artists including Death Cab for Cutie, Atmosphere, Tapes 'n Tapes, Dizzee Rascal, Tokyo Police Club, The Long Blondes and others, in an effort to help marry the power of great music with college students' activist spirit, to take action on one of the world's most pressing humanitarian crises. Jal's upcoming album, "Warchild," due out May 13, will be part of this promotion. More information on "Turn It Up" can be found here: http://www.mtvu.com/

"War Child," the feature film documentary that tells the story of Jal's extraordinary life experiences, will screen at this year's Tribeca Film Festival held in New York later this month. A trailer from "War Child" can be viewed here: http://warchildmovie.com/

The stunning title track from Jal's upcoming CD "Warchild" is now available as a digital single on iTunes beginning. The UK's daily newspaper The Independent called "Warchild" "...a riveting listening pleasure...I strongly recommend this piece of work to anybody who appreciates heartfelt, introspective and literate music." Jal has also just finished filming the video for the "Warchild" track; the video and exclusive behind-the-scenes footage will be available shortly.

Emmanuel Jal knows of the horrific Darfur situation better than most. For a seven-year period beginning when he was about six or seven years old, he was taken from his home and taught the skills to be a child soldier, fighting for the Sudan People's Liberation Army in Sudan's civil war. He learned how to fire a machine gun before he could ride a bike, and lives with the nightmares of the unspeakable things he had to do to survive. When he was about 13, he, along with some 400 other "child soldiers," courageously deserted the rebel lines, trekking through empty deserts in search of food and shelter. Only sixteen made it to the relative freedom of a refugee camp. Jal was one of them.

Music is what kept him going after returning to "the real world." On "Warchild," Jal mixes African with hip hop with world music rhythms, and tells his incredible story in songs like "Forced to Sin," "Many Rivers to Cross," "Baaki Wara," and the title track. Over the past several years, he has befriended artists like Peter Gabriel, Bono, Moby and Sir Bob Geldof who have helped Emmanuel in countless ways, whether with his music or his Gua Africa foundation that helps educate former child soldiers.

Folk group performing live for church cash campaign

A Church fundraising campaign sees its latest event take place next week with outstanding folk group Sheelanagig performing live. Aslackby Church fundraising efforts have been going well with their Film on Friday series. But on Friday April 11 at 7.30pm Sheelanagig will play in St James' Church, as part of their extensive spring tour.

At the end of December 2008, the band was listed as one of the best five live gigs in The Independent. Their acoustic world folk style combines Western swing with Arabic melodies, and klezmer with Irish reels. The five strong band has two albums behind them, the most recent, Baba Yaga's Ball, recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World studios.

Last year they played on the Avalon Stage at Glastonbury and will be there again this year. Their festival highlights include The Big Chill, Trowbridge, Shepley Spring Festival, Lamar Tree Festival and Broadstairs Folk Festival to name but a few. They play regularly in Scotland, Ireland, Denmark and Italy where they performed last year at the Ferrara International Buskers Festival - and now Aslackby church.

Youssou N'Dour, Sénégal Inc.

Youssou N’Dour. Figure de la chanson mondiale, la star de Dakar diversifie ses activités en homme d’affaires avisé. Prudent, il évite la politique et préfère l’humanitaire.

Il a grandi «enchevauché» entre deux maisons. Son père, parce qu’il avait épousé une fille de griot et n’était pas griot, avait dû quitter la «grande maison», celle où, dans la tradition de la caste, les faits et gestes du quotidien au même titre que l’histoire passée nourrissent les récits des poètes musiciens. A ses 10 ans, Youssou est réclamé par sa grand-mère maternelle. «J’ai dormi pendant cinq ans dans sa chambre, j’avais le privilège de l’écouter longuement avant de dormir. Et le matin, je me levais tôt pour aller lui chercher de l’eau.» Les canalisations n’étaient pas encore arrivées dans la Médina, quartier pauvre de Dakar, qu’il traversait le mercredi et le week-end pour aller rejoindre ses parents et l’atelier de ferraille paternel.

De leur mésalliance, il tire sa liberté et sa destinée. «Le griot, à l’époque, ne se faisait respecter que lorsqu’il chantait dans les mariages, les baptêmes. Sinon, il n’attirait pas l’attention dans la vie de chaque jour.» Entre les premières cérémonies, où il se produit à 13 ans, et ses tours de chauffe dans un théâtre avec son groupe de musiciens, où il découvre que «des gens sont prêts à payer un billet pour venir [les] écouter», Youssou N’Dour a choisi. Il sera un «griot moderne».

Porté par une voix à nulle autre pareille, où résonnent les anciens, l’envie de changer le monde et une touche de muezzin, il est monté au firmament. Vénéré au Sénégal pour sa réussite, admiré sur la scène musicale pour ses audaces, messager de l’Afrique auprès du G8, il a rejoint la caste des artistes planétaires. «C’est la plus belle voix du monde», avait dit son découvreur, Peter Gabriel qui l’avait lancé dans le circuit. «Il était venu me voir alors que je passais pour la première fois à Londres. Je ne connaissais même pas sa musique. Il m’a invité à venir chez lui où il préparait son album So. Nous avons passé deux jours extraordinaires à chanter… C’est amusant, je dois l’avoir justement au téléphone aujourd’hui, on se parle toujours de nos projets, des nouvelles technologies et de leur influence sur l’industrie de la musique.»

En ces années world music et bands aid, Youssou N’Dour aurait pu tourner en orbite, une maison à Londres, une autre à New York. Au lieu de quoi, s’il globe-trotte toujours d’un concert à une conférence sur le paludisme, il ne se pose qu’à Dakar, son territoire. Et s’il a beaucoup de biens, tous ont une seule adresse : le Sénégal. Siège de la Youssou Inc.

Car ce griot-là, grand et élégant, très sur son quant-à-soi, est un cas d’espèce. Un entrepreneur hors pair. Qui le voit, côté cuisine, dériver ses produits jusqu’à publier, les Recettes de ma mère. Et, côté justes causes, lancer, voilà quelques semaines, une société de microcrédit avec l’appui financier de Benetton, baptisée Birima, du nom d’un ancien roi du Sénégal généreux et mélomane. «Il n’avait qu’une parole et la respectait. Donc, l’idée de Birima, c’est que les gens redeviennent crédibles par la parole donnée.» La parole, en guise de garantie simplifiée.

«Il est loin de l’image des anciens musiciens qui se soûlaient la gueule. C’est foncièrement un businessman, ce qui ne retire rien à son talent artistique, résume le jeune rappeur sénégalais Didier Awadi. Toute sa vie, il a osé, en musique comme en affaires.»

A ses débuts, «You», comme le surnomme Dakar, fusionne salsa et tradition, réinvente le rythme Mbalax, il s’essaie au R’n’B, à la musique arabe dans son album Egypte qui vante un islam éclairé, il approche le jazz, convoque le blues… Toujours à sa guise. Il a assuré ses positions à Dakar depuis longtemps maintenant, avec un studio moderne nommé Xippi, un label, Jololi, sous lequel il produit les jeunes musiciens sénégalais. Et il possède plusieurs clubs, dont le Thiossane où, avec son groupe le Super Etoile, il fait danser jusqu’au petit matin.

Youssou tient son marché en mains, en homme avisé. Quand les majors se prennent à rêver d’avoir dégotté un Phil Collins noir, puis quand elles comprennent que la rentabilité d’un chanteur en langue wolof ne va pas de soi, il sait qu’il peut compter sur sa base arrière. Même le tube 7 Seconds, en duo avec Neneh Cherry, n’a pas dévié sa trajectoire. Anglais pour elle, Wolof pour lui. Il se veut artiste du monde, pour l’Afrique.

A Dakar, son pouvoir s’étend aussi à la communication. Son groupe de presse, qui compte une radio, Radio Futur Medias (RFM), et un quotidien, l’Observateur, qui revendique le premier tirage du pays (55 000 exemplaires), doit se doter d’une télévision. «Si les gens ne sont pas informés, ils ne peuvent pas décider par eux-mêmes. C’est comme ça que l’on voit encore dans des pays d’Afrique, des gens être achetés pour leurs votes. C’est terrible ! Souvenez-vous aussi du rôle des médias [comme la radio des 1 000 collines, ndlr] dans les massacres du Rwanda.»

Lui fait bon ménage avec le pouvoir en place au Sénégal. Un temps, vu son appétit tout-terrain, on l’a dit partant pour la politique. Il était flatté. Puis tenté. Aujourd’hui, il en a fini avec cette idée, prétend qu’il n’en a pas le talent: «Les gens avec moi mangeraient des pierres.» Sans doute a-t-il senti que ce pouvoir-là lui rognerait les ailes. Il lui préfère les combats humanitaires. En juillet, il sera au Japon pour le G8, avec Bono. «Nous sommes parvenus à créer une nouvelle diplomatie, à faire avancer les choses sur l’annulation de la dette, les objectifs du millénaire, la lutte contre le paludisme.»

Des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement qu’il a rencontrés, il cite Tony Blair en premier pour avoir mis son poids dans la balance sur la dette. S’il réprouve Bush sur l’Irak et bien d’autres choses, il reconnaît «ses efforts» dans la lutte contre le paludisme et le sida. A la France, il préfère évoquer l’Union européenne qui a établi une relation «plus claire, plus crédible» avec l’Afrique. Quant à Nicolas Sarkozy, qui, dans son discours de Dakar, a eu des relents néocolonialistes, il glisse qu’il «aura d’autres occasions de rectifier sa maladresse».

Tempéré et rassembleur, Youssou N’Dour voudrait rééquilibrer les plateaux de la balance. «L’Afrique a eu ses idées, ses inventions, ses visions, il faut les faire resurgir. Nous avons beaucoup reçu de la part des pays développés mais nous nous souvenons que nous avons aussi beaucoup apporté.»

Demain soir, quand la lumière s’allumera sur Bercy, il n’aura plus ces accents missionnaires, cette distance d’homme d’affaires, cette voix neutre et froide qui déçoit. Alors, celle-ci s’élèvera, polychrome et virtuose, pour la fête de la diaspora sénégalaise. Un grand bal africain d’une nuit qu’il a institué, auquel il convie une soixantaine d’invités de Dakar comme on donne des étrennes, où la danse réunira ceux venus de Milan, de Bruxelles et de la région parisienne. Alors, il chantera pour toute la famille, des refrains d’amour pour les femmes, des histoires sociales pour les hommes et des messages pour tous.

Marie Guichoux, Liberation

Living With Music: A Playlist by A.M. Homes

On Wednesdays, this blog is the delivery vehicle for “Living With Music,” a playlist of songs from a writer or some other kind of book-world personage. This week: The novelist A.M. Homes, whose most recent book is “The Mistress’s Daughter,” a memoir.

A.M. Homes’s March 2008 Playlist:

In retrospect and with the endless impulse toward revision, I look at this list thinking it’s all about sex and longing and metaphysical impossibility and the hand of god - and is there anything else? Is there something more - I expect nothing less.

1) Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne as sung by Peter Gabriel on “Tower Of Song.” A mysterious, erotic incantation that begins with shuffling drums, scratching wire brushes sweeping the snare, scratching, itching, writhing with the impossibility of it all. It’s endlessly inspiring for its romanticism, longing and applicability to any object of desire, the elusive that can never really be. I think of the ethereal Suzanne as she’s sung to us, “she brings you tea and oranges that come all the way from china,” and the reality of the “real” Suzanne, now frozen in lost time with a permanent view of the St. Lawrence River. Somehow always in my mind’s eye I had placed her in Greece, in Hydra with Cohen, but maybe I just made that up, maybe that was the next Suzanne for as unpossessible as she was or is, there is always another Suzanne. (...)

By Dwight Garner

Elle est Babel, ma musique

World. Le forum marseillais professionnel a réuni 12 000 spectateurs ce week-end.

Face aux Docks des Suds, où s’est tenu ce week-end le quatrième forum Babel Med Music, se dresse une vraie tour de Babel : l’édifice CMA-CGM, en construction, appelé à devenir le plus haut de Marseille. La nuit, illuminée et flanquée de deux grues gigantesques, cette masse de béton poétique devient un rêve d’installation d’art contemporain. Les Docks des Suds, anciens entrepôts du port autonome, accueillent chaque automne la Fiesta des Suds, dont Babel Med est le petit frère. Une partie accueille le marché des professionnels des musiques du monde. Le soir est réservé aux concerts : trente artistes sur trois jours. (...)

A l’heure du bilan cependant, deux chocs éclipsent tout le reste. Marseillais lui aussi, Levon Minassian est un des rares maîtres du duduk, une simple flûte à neuf trous, emblème de l’Arménie. Auteur de deux disques peu diffusés, les musiciens se l’arrachent, de Peter Gabriel (avec qui il doit entrer en studio) à Sting, sans oublier sa participation à des musiques de films (la Passion du Christ de Mel Gibson). Accompagné par un petit ensemble, il crée des vagues d’émotion avec cet instrument difficile entre tous. «Tout est dans la pression des lèvres sur l’embout, explique cet homme humble et rayonnant. Il faut dix ans de travail solitaire pour en tirer un son acceptable. Je m’exerce encore chaque jour, parfois deux heures, le plus souvent quatre, et continue à toujours trouver des nuances nouvelles.» (...)

Daniel Lanois Here Is What Is

This guy quietly has been at the epicenter of some of the most sonically adventurous yet commercially and artistically successful albums released in the last several decades. He was instrumental in five epochal U2 albums (including the shockingly, gloriously resilient Joshua Tree). He pulled Bob Dylan from a drifting period (the resulting Time Out of Mind and Oh Mercy remain brilliant). He helped catapult Peter Gabriel from steady cult fave to arena star without loss of credibility (So and Us). Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Robbie Robertson and the Neville Brothers sing his praises whenever asked. Lucky Los Angelenos will recall Lanois touring on the back of Harris’ Wrecking Ball. The band took the stage at the Troubadour in timely fashion, but Lanois switched from guitar until the late drummer finally found the stage. Neither Harris nor Lanois nor the audience missed a beat.

I hope someone can introduce Lanois and Dave Alvin, their melding of texture and atmospherics would be fascinating.

Lanois has released his seventh in a string of solo albums. The title song references a Jamaican proverb, essentially meaning what you have in front of you is what you gotta use. And that adroitly sums up his philosophy.

For years Lanois and fellow traveler Brian Eno have collaborated and produced a mindset and canon that goes to the core of the creative process. The central catalyst they established with each other early on is “Whatever I say, you agree and whatever you say, I agree.” Eno points out that nothing then stands in the way of getting on with the creative process. Once underway, magic eventually unfolds.

Currently Lanois and Eno are now back in the studio with U2, cooking up (somewhat improbably, but ultimately inevitably) the Irish quartet’s next stunner.

In conjunction with his latest solo release, Lanois has produced a documentary. It sheds light on the magic of creating art. It portends a series of solo albums which Lanois will make available via his site www.redfloorrecords.com. He is most enamored of the steel guitar, what he repeatedly calls his “church in a suitcase.”

Lanois is a man of the world. He spent time in New Orleans but like Ray Davies, Lanois recently left there due to some bad circumstances he prefers to leave undiscussed. Lanois shifts his base of operations from LA to Toronto, and disembarks in Morocco or France when assembling with U2 and Eno.

Lanois has expressed a bifurcated view of technology. In some interviews he bemoans the advanced state of the recording process. Whereas in the analog days gone by, the studio represented a near-scared place of “hopes and dreams” wherein everyone looked forward to the expensive and important time therein. Now the studio is everywhere given the accessibility and ubiquity of recording equipment. In another interview, however, he delights in a battery-driven box the size of a cigarette pack, four of which Lanois says could record a fine album.

But the seeming dichotomy of high tech and low tech is resolved, subtly yet effectively as a flying mallet, in the title of his new album and the music captured therein.

Written by BRAD AUERBACH

Folk duo's Durham debut

One of the UK's finest folk duos are to make their Durham debut next week.

Show of Hands, featuring the combined talents of Steve Knightly and Phil Beer, are on a 19-date national tour, which reaches The Gala Theatre on Wednesday, April 9.

It marks a belated appearance in Durham for the award-winning duo, who had to cancel their tour in the autumn at the last minute following news that Mr Knightley's young son Jack had been diagnosed with leukaemia.

Mr Knightley said: "Jack has gone through his initial period of treatment with flying colours and although it will be nearly three years until the all clear, all the early signs are encouraging".

The tour has been timed to showcase their new double album Roots - The Best Of Show Of Hands. The band have won many plaudits over the years. They were described by Peter Gabriel as "one of the great English bands" and by Radio 2's Mike Harding as: "one of the finest folk duos ever to grace the scene."

By Mark Tallentire

I predict a riot

When the musician Björk cried out "Tibet, Tibet" during her concert in Shanghai on March 2, it was always going to be controversial. However, few people probably expected that within two weeks the Himalayan country would see spontaneous demonstrations for independence - that for the first time in decades Tibetans would take to the streets, demanding their freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama.

So am I alone in thinking that Björk may have sparked the riots in Tibet? Is it possible that the diminutive Icelandic pop-star was the catalyst for the protests which engulfed the country, spreading to China itself? Did she really penetrate the great firewall of China to rock the world, or with the Beijing Olympics around the corner is it all just coincidental?

Björk, who once brutally attacked a journalist in Thailand, said in an interview with the NME, shortly after the insurrection against Chinese rule took hold in Tibet, "the issue is: how are they going to deal with western moral issues like freedom of speech? Songs like Declare Independence for me are about humanity. I stand by what I said."

Björk is not the first artist to speak out about human rights. Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and Joan Baez all supported the civil rights movement in the 1960's. Peter Gabriel, Eddy Grant and others were vocal when it came to South Africa in the 1980s. And let us not forget John Lennon, who imagined a better world and became a symbol for the peace movement, when he sang Give Peace and Chance.

Then there was Paul Simon who defied the cultural boycott against South Africa to record his acclaimed album Graceland, and who once said in an interview that he thought he had contributed to the downfall of apartheid.

In his song about the late Steve Biko, leader of South Africa's Black Consciousness movement, who was brutally murdered by the Apartheid state, Peter Gabriel wrote prophetically, "You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire. Once the flames begin to catch the wind will blow it higher." But did his music actually fan the flames of revolution? Do artists really ever hold that much sway?

Jeremy Kuper March 29, 2008

Daniel Lanois lets his life's work show through

The notable producer and guitarist reveals his approach to music with a new film and album. Both are titled 'Here Is What Is.'

Artful and highly informative views of a life behind and inside the music, Daniel Lanois' new film "Here Is What Is" and self-released album of the same title had their Los Angeles premieres with a screening and live performance at the Vista Theatre on Thursday.

A roving travelogue of the producer-engineer-guitarist's experiences recording in five locations, the film encapsulates the musical philosophies and detailed particulars of Lanois' approach to a new sound for contemporary music, as told by himself and his cast of high-profile collaborators, including U2, Brian Eno and Sinéad O'Connor.

The Quebec-born Lanois, 56, got his initial career boost through collaborations with Eno on several albums in the early '70s that emphasized simplicity, subtle aural resonance and a nonintellectualized attention paid to process. The pair's work as producers for U2 led to Lanois' subsequent production jobs for artists such as Bob Dylan, O'Connor, Peter Gabriel and Robbie Robertson; the hallmark of Lanois' sound was a gift for heightened atmosphere via emphasis on feel over technical perfection, as well as his respect for analog recording equipment and vintage instruments.

The new record was culled from material Lanois had in the can and reimagined for the CD and film; both are available through his Red Floor Records, www.redfloorrecords.com.

"It's about half and half," he said this week in the sunny breakfast nook of his home in Silver Lake. "Some of the compositions on there are brand-new and some are a little further back. There's a repeat of a steel guitar instrumental called 'JJ Leaves L.A.,' which we put in there because it's in the film.
"There's a very nice performance of 'JJ' in the film; we shot it here in the mezzanine. At night it blackens pretty good, and if you shine a spotlight on the floor, you get a red circle. And so we put the steel guitar there, and in the film you get the sensation almost like I'm on a moving saucer. We shot from above with a slow zoom, and then the editor gave it a little spin in the computer, so it's almost like this twirling disc; when it stops twirling, we come to a close shot of my hands on a steel guitar. It's very beautiful."

In his glowing report of how the filmmaker created that shot, Lanois betrayed his typically folksy, genuine excitement about the creative process. That partly explains the characteristically warm, inviting sound of his music and production work for others.

At the Vista, Lanois was joined for a few selections from the album by longtime drummer Brian Blade, backup singers-keyboardists Daryl Johnson and Aaron Embry, and in one piece by Blade's father, a preacher in Shreveport, La., who provided the gospel on a fiery "This May Be My Last Time," as he does in a scene from the film. Lanois' rough-hewn, intuitive guitar work loped gracefully through the brief set, which also included a bracing soliloquy by Billy Bob Thornton from his "Sling Blade" film, which Lanois scored in 1996.

Lanois is now off to Ireland to finish production on the new U2 album, which he promises is going to be something special. ("We're quite excited about it. Bono's singing like a bird.") In addition, he's working on new material with O'Connor and building a new studio and performance space in Toronto, a home base for recording and performing before a live audience.

He's a busy guy, which his laid-back, friendly vibe would seem to belie. He says that's due in part to his trusty lap-steel guitar, his source of solace and wonder.

"It's such a reliable friend," he said, smiling. "As the world keeps on turning in a mad way, I can go to that friend and say, 'OK, let's just slow things down here and enjoy the fundamentals of our relationship' -- which happens to be my paying attention to all of the details of varied mechanical musical instruments. But no matter how high-speed everything gets, that part of it doesn't speed up at all. There's no rushing with this instrument, with this friend. It'll always be there the same way it's always been, and it'll never be anything different than what it is. There's music that lives outside of confinements, and that's where harmonic interplay lives. And you have to take the time to hear it. So I like to go there, and that's what my steel guitar has to offer. I call it my church in a suitcase."

By John Payne Special to The Times March 29, 2008

The sounds of Scorsese

As the veteran film-maker releases his concert movie on the Rolling Stones, Nick Coleman applauds a director who's always put music at the heart of the action

Martin Scorsese has made a concert film of the Rolling Stones. Shine a Light is a record of a single live date in 2006, a benefit for the Clinton Foundation. By all accounts it's a straightforward, linear affair, achieved in high style and with palpable affection.

You can see why Mick Jagger might fancy such a thing. Cinema has not over-dignified the Stones over the years and the group themselves have made no suitable celluloid gift to posterity. Who better, then, to make them look the way they'd want to look in their dotage than the original Rockin' Movie Brat?

It's harder to see why Scorsese might fancy such a project. His artistic legacy is so secure that he no more needs to make an edifice out of the Rolling Stones than he needs to direct an episode of Basil Brush. But it only takes a look at the Scorsese canon to see that Shine a Light was almost inevitable. From the very start it was obvious Scorsese was going to do something like this. He's even done something like it before. In 1976 he recorded the valedictory performance by The Band at Winterland, San Francisco. The Last Waltz is as lapidary and monumental as rock concert films get.

Scorsese has always loved music immoderately. Certainly, no single film director of his clout has made such essentially musical films. Even with the sound turned down, the best Scorsese films shout and shimmy and reach, as if in reflex, for the transcending arc of aria. They are music in film form.

Here's the great New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael on Mean Streets (1973): "The music is the electricity in the air of this movie; the music is like an engine that the characters move to. Johnny Boy, the most susceptible, half dances through the movie... He enjoys being out of control - he revels in it - and we can feel the music turning him on."

We should not expect Scorsese's films to be any other way. He is, after all, the kingpin of the "movie brat" generation that emerged snapping their fingers from the film schools of the Sixties, as much in thrall to hipsterism and its soundtrack as they were to the European New Wave cinema and Forties American films noir.

For Scorsese in particular, the music in a film is not ancilliary to what he has to say, it is, in part, what he has to say. And to say it properly he requires his music to do its work internally, within the world of his cinematic stories. As often as not in Scorsese films, the music emanates from the drama, like a smell. Here's Kael again, on the music in Mean Streets: "[It] doesn't use music, as Easy Rider sometimes did, to do the movie's work for it ... The music here isn't our music, meant to put us in the mood of the movie, but the characters' music."

(...)

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1987)

For his solemn treatment of Nikos Kazantzakis's novel about the spiritual racking of Jesus, Scorsese elected to commission an original score by Peter Gabriel. "The brief," says Gabriel, "was to create a landscape that was part ancient, part contemporary, part familiar, part unknown, and very soulful. We both wanted to break away from the traditional choral and orchestral music connected with the Passion story, to create a new canvas. I was concerned whether Marty would respond to the idea of the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, bringing his majestic Sufi singing to the Christian story, but he loved the idea." Whether or not the film works as a film, the music certainly works as music. (...)

By Nick Coleman
Thursday March 27 2008

A world of talent at Jefferson Center

Angelique Kidjo wants to make you move. She also wants to make you think.

Kidjo, whose latest CD, "Djin Djin," won the Grammy for contemporary world music album last month, performs Thursday night at Jefferson Center's Shaftman Hall.

The album is stocked with undeniable grooves, courtesy of drummers from her homeland of Benin, West Africa, plus vocal and instrumental stamps from guest artists including Alicia Keys, Branford Marsalis, Peter Gabriel, Joss Stone and Josh Groban.

It might sound like a party, but Kidjo, a special representative for UNICEF, writes lyrics that remind us this beautiful music springs from a place that needs care and attention from the rest of the world.

Kidjo was 20 when she left Benin in 1980 because of political unrest. But she goes back for inspiration whenever it's time to record a new album.

Q: First off, congratulations on your Grammy, and on your previous nominations. What does an award like this mean to you?

I have been nominated a few times before, and it was always a frustration not to win, so now this frustration is gone! I was not supposed to be at the ceremony, but in the end I was, and it was quite a moment for me!

Q: "Djin Djin" is loaded with interesting musical choices and quite a cast of supporting players. How difficult was it to bring together such a range of musicians for this project?

I had a clear vision on what I wanted to do for this album: I wanted to use the percussion players from my country, because there are rhythms over there that you don't hear anywhere else. I also wanted to invite guests to sing with me, but I wanted to bring them to my world and not try to imitate their styles. I think this is what they liked about the project: It is something different that has never been heard before.

Q: Among this group of guest performers, how many had you worked with before?

I had met and worked with all of them before the recording, so those collaborations sounded natural. It was not something arranged for marketing reasons -- there was mutual respect.

Q: In the CD liner notes, under "Ae Ae," you've written: "The African youth want to fulfill their dreams and to improve the lives of their families. Traveling to America, Europe, Asia and Oceania should not be the only alternative." Please talk about conditions now in Benin, and what you wish to happen to make such a dream possible.

It is not easy, because globalization has affected everyone, both in rich and in poor countries.

The poorest countries have difficulties exporting their products because a lot of the international trade agreements are not fair for them. Also, when you are in Benin, you are dreaming about what is going on in the Western world without getting a sense of what is really going on there and how much you can be humiliated when you arrive.

I want to try to improve education in Africa, because this is what could build the countries in the years to come and help people understand the world as it is and making the changes needed.

Q: What inspired the idea to cover "Gimme Shelter"?

It was not thought out beforehand. We heard the song in the opening titles of the movie "The Departed," and thought the lyrics sounded quite apropos these days.

The next day, the band jammed on it, and in 30 minutes, it was recorded!

Q: In the liner note thank-yous, you write of Peter Gabriel, "your soul belongs to Africa!" Please talk about working with him.

I have known Peter for many years, and he is truly a big fan of African music. When you see him backstage at an African show, he is just having the time of his life. He has done so much to promote this music without calculation, just for the love of it!

When we received his vocals, and we first listened to them, it was so emotional. I'll never forget that.

Q: I understand that you were inspired early on by a Jimi Hendrix album cover, and that part of this record was recorded at Electric Lady Studios (Hendrix's studio). What was it like recording there?

So many studios have closed in New York. We wanted to record the album with all the musicians playing live in the same room, so there was not a lot of options. But when I heard that Electric Lady was available, I was so thrilled. It was like finishing what I started as a little girl ... trying to sing Jimi's lyrics without understanding any of them.

Q: I'd like to ask you about "Senamou (c'est l'amour)." You write: "Why are the poor getting poorer? Why are the rich getting richer? Is poverty a crime? And you think there is no hope? No, human kindness, I still believe in you." Please talk about the hope you express in those lyrics.

I am a very positive person. Through all my travels with UNICEF, I have witnessed so much suffering, but I still believe something can be done about it.

The world has to get more balanced. This is something everyone is starting to agree with!

By Tad Dickens

La voix du doudouk

J’ai pour les instruments de musique une passion qui remonte à loin...

Disons plus simplement que je suis tombé dedans quand j’étais petit et cela ne m’a jamais plus quitté. J’en ai joué, vendu, réparé, théorisé, enseigné ; du plus petit au plus gros, du plus ancien au plus contemporain, de l’acoustique à l’électrique, du plus primitif au plus sophistiqué, du folklorique au savant, de l’occidental à l’oriental... Aussi, arrivé vers l’âge de la cinquantaine, je croyais avoir entendu, sinon tout ce qui existe au monde, au moins ce qui est digne d’intérêt, qui produit un son original et assez sophistiqué pour être utilisé dans des musiques dignes de ce nom.

Je le croyais donc jusqu’à ce jour de l’année 2000 où je regardais tranquillement un documentaire consacré à un voyage de Charles Aznavour dans son Arménie natale. Et là, tout à coup, en musique d’illustration, j’entends un son sublime, inouï, bouleversant : une voix venue de nulle part, antique et mystérieuse.

Stupéfait de ne pas connaître un pareil instrument, de n’en avoir jamais entendu parler, je me lance à la recherche d’informations que je vais acquérir petit à petit : il s’appelle le « doudouk » (parfois orthographié « duduk »ou « doudoug ») ; c’est un instrument arménien quasi mythique, plus de deux fois millénaire, qui a quelques déclinaisons chez les Kurdes et les Azéris sous les noms de mey et balaban.

Il s’agit d’une sorte de hautbois qui présente la particularité d’avoir une anche double gigantesque (8 à 14 cm dans la longueur, quasiment le tiers du corps de l’instrument !), très épaisse, qui lui permet d’obtenir ce son anormalement grave compte tenu de sa petite taille (de 28 à 40 cm), et ce timbre unique qui ne ressemble à aucun autre instrument du monde occidental, sinon vaguement à la clarinette dans son registre le plus grave.

De perce cylindrique pour les modèles traditionnels, fabriqué généralement en bois d’abricotier ou de mûrier, il comporte 8 ou 9 trous et une encoche pour le pouce.

L’anche, faite d’un roseau, que l’instrumentiste tient entre ses lèvres comporte une attache coulissante qui permet de l’accorder et, retenu par un fil, un bouchon qui maintient sa forme lorsqu’elle ne sert pas.

Cet instrument, très difficile à jouer en raison de la taille et de l’épaisseur de l’anche, exige en effet une colonne d’air gigantesque, d’autant que les musiciens, surtout lorsqu’ils jouent en bourdon d’accompagnement, utilisent la technique du souffle circulaire, grâce à laquelle on ne les entend pas respirer : elle consiste à aspirer l’air par le nez et à le stoker dans le haut des joues tout en continuant de souffler et de maintenir la pression des lèvres sur le roseau [1]. C’est cela, le vibrato et l’absence de percussion à l’attaque du son qui m’avaient induit en erreur la première fois, et fait croire à un instrument à cordes actionné par un archet.

La tessiture de l’instrument est faible : un octave et une tierce, mais le doudouk se décline en plusieurs tailles, dont alto et basse. Certains doudouks modernes comportent même des clés qui permettent une tessiture plus élargie et facilitent les dièses et les bémols.

Dans ses utilisations traditionnelles, cet instrument est accompagné par un ou deux autres doudouks plus graves, dont l’un au moins fait bourdon, basse continue. Mais il a désormais franchi le cercle des spécialistes des musiques arméniennes : Peter Gabriel est le premier à l’avoir fait découvrir à un large public et on l’entend notamment dans des musiques de film : Gladiator, Munich, Indigènes...

En 2005, l’Unesco a intégré cet instrument fabuleux au patrimoine oral de l’humanité.

Outre les quelques extraits qui sont donnés ici, on pourra voir les liens suivants :

ici et ici

A partir de ce dernier lien, il y a beaucoup de vidéos disponibles.

[1] Cette technique, connue pour le didjéridou australien, est aussi utilisée pour d’autres instruments à vent, notamment du pourtour méditerranéen et du Sahara.