Group Doueh [extended]

• Guitar Music From the Western Sahara [Sublime Frequencies, 2007] ***
• Treeg Salaam [Sublime Frequencies, 2009] **
• Zayna Jumma [Sublime Frequencies, 2011] A-
• Dakhla Sahara Session [Born Bad, 2017] A

See Also:

• Group Doueh & Cheveu

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Guitar Music From the Western Sahara [Sublime Frequencies, 2007]
World-traveling Sahrawi Hendrix fan preserves his music on homemade cassettes a mite too crude for the international market ("Eid For Dakhla," "Cheyla Ya Haiuune"). ***

Treeg Salaam [Sublime Frequencies, 2009]
Two startlingly chaotic burners, two declarations of noisy spiritual devotion, and 20 minutes of sun-dazed head music wavering woozily over the bright desert sand ("Beatte Harab," "Ragsa Jaguar"). **

Zayna Jumma [Sublime Frequencies, 2011]
In which another Hendrix fan, the West Saharan named Salmou Bamaar who performs as Doueh, is induced to record an entire album that lives up to the frantic weirdness of the first two tracks on 2009's Treeg Salaam. Don't anticipate virtuosity as mortals such as you and I conceive it. Performed primarily by members of Doueh's family, with women providing much of the percussion if the photos I've seen are any guide, this music is rough and crude the way garage revivalists, for instance, only wish they could be, because in their own way these people can play, and it isn't your way. It helps that the recording quality improves vastly on his previous home-taped standards. But it also helps that somebody convinced him he was free to let loose. A-

Group Doueh & Cheveu: Dakhla Sahara Session [Born Bad, 2017]
Recorded over nine headlong, unharmonious January 2016 days in a Western Sahara ocean town, this conflict-ridden one-off collab between a non-Tuareg desert band and a Parisian rock trio rangier and less punky than you'd expect, this is one of those wildly impolite guitar records you're lucky to trip over twice a year. It begins with handclaps that soon combust past the French singer's male groans into exultant woman-to-woman byplay, and by explosive track five "Azawan," which it's worth remembering is how Tuaregs say homeland, everybody sounds desperate to get on with it or out of there. Only then follows "Charâa," a long waltz-time centerpiece split into three distinct case studies in peaceful coexistence. All over this record, hoarse roar meets soaring contralto while flute tweets, keyb tinkles, and squishy noises fit right in. A