Mdou Moctar | Fully Seated

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The guitar solo fell out of fashion in America roughly the same decade it became the central instrument of a music scene in the Sahara, played on gear rigged to run off whatever power was available and traded between phones on memory cards rather than sold. Moctar came up in that circuit, in Tuareg, and the band he tours with plays fast enough that people who came expecting something meditative spend the night recalibrating. Comparisons to Hendrix get made constantly and are not really wrong, though they undersell how much of this is a rhythm section doing something unfamiliar underneath. This particular date is seated, which changes the experience — it puts the attention on the playing rather than the room, and for this band that is arguably the better version. Music at 8:00 PM in Ventura on East Thompson Boulevard. Anybody who has followed the West African guitar circuit for a while will tell you these tours are rare and the recordings do not prepare you.