Aziza Brahim, Mi Canto
African-born singer gives the desert blues a female face
Like Etran Finatwa, Tinariwen and Terakaft, Aziza Brahim comes from Western Sahara and plays what has been dubbed "desert blues," a style that intersects what can only be called an Arab sound and American rock and country. There's lots and lots of guitar — really the only American or Western element, but it's extremely prevalent — many layers of percussion and, in the case of Mi Canto, Ms. Brahim's solo debut, a vulnerable female vocal that tugs and pushes at all of the other elements, and delivers a much more human sound than the lauded contemporaries and sometime collaborators mentioned earlier.
"Alli Nahuah" and "Regresso" are the two best songs here, and it's no coincidence that they are the two most Western tracks. "Alli Nahuah" reminds me of "Norwegian Wood" — a bit of echoing of the melody back and forth via a couple of different instruments — and "Regresso" has these fantastic little starts and stops that give it a very rich structure that's engrossing and addictive.
We actually worked hard in 2008 to try and sign Aziza Brahim to eMusic Selects; that's how convinced we were of her promise, and the excellence of her recordings. Mi Canto confirms the rightness of that impulse.
