by David Wilikofsky
Back in 2014, Christopher Kirkley (founder of the Sahel Sounds label) hunted down Fatou Seidi Ghali to her hometown of Illighadad, Niger after seeing a video of her playing guitar on YouTube. The field recordings he eventually made with Ghali and her cousin playing traditional songs made up Les Filles de Illighadad (which translates to “daughters of Illighadad”), the debut recording from the group. A few years later, the band (now touring the world and expanded to a quartet) entered a studio to record their follow up, Eghass Malan. It’s been four years since that album, and the group is back with a new one that captures a more recent facet of their sound: that of a powerhouse live band. The recordings that make up At Pioneer Works were captured at the tail end of two years of international touring in support of Eghass Malan, and they show a band in peak form. Across its six tracks, the band stretches songs from their back catalog into mesmerizing, meditative jam sessions.
Les Filles de Illighadad are known for combining Tuareg guitar music with tende, a traditional local style of chanting and drumming. Both elements are on display throughout this album; the rhythm section of both the tende drum and hand claps provides a steady foundation for the guitars to ride atop, but the end result feels like something greater than its composite parts. The guitar parts often feel more textural than melodic, swirling together with the rhythm section and call and response vocals into something equal parts devotional and hypnotic. No track clocks in at less than five minutes, with the band weaving each instrument into extended, trance-like jams. Perhaps the difference in sound is most apparent on “Telilit,” a track that also appeared on their self-titled album. On that recording gently plucked acoustic guitars mixed with environmental ambience into something quietly beautiful, but on At Pioneer Works the song transforms into an epic eleven minute journey. Trading off between electric guitar solos and vocal passages, the band locks into a groove from the song’s first notes and maintains it to the last. Each track they’ve recorded previously feels at least a little transformed from its previous version, here equal parts song and vehicle for the band’s extended musical explorations.
In press, Ghali is often referred to as the first professional female Tuareg guitarist, as well as her band being the first female fronted Tuareg band. While noteworthy given the male dominance of their scene, it does feel like constantly pointing these facts out undercuts some of the power of the group’s music, which easily stands on its own without any of this narrative. Perhaps music critic Amanda Petrusich said it best when writing about this very show back in 2019; although the band’s command of English initially proved an impediment to getting the crowd dancing, “eventually, the music communicated something unambiguous. Whatever rhythm does to a human body—it was happening. By the end of the evening, people had abandoned their rickety folding chairs and little plastic cups of wine to boogie with abandon.” These intoxicating rhythms prove to be just as potent on record as they were in person that evening.