Compared with its neighbours Mali and Senegal, Mauritania has enjoyed little international recognition for its music, but Noura Mint Seymali intends to put that right. A griot (oral poet) from a celebrated musical family, she started out working with her stepmother, the great singer Dimi Mint Abba, and now plays desert rock in a four-piece band dominated by the amplified “modified Moorish guitar” of her husband Jeiche Ould Chighaly. Her powerful voice sounded a little relentless on her first, much-praised international release, Tzenni, but this a more varied affair in which exuberant, full-tilt songs are matched against the lighter, traditional Suedi Koum, or the melodic Richa, written by her father and now dressed up with powerful guitar work. Elsewhere, there are echoes of desert blues and reggae, and some intriguing lyrics. The rousing title track is both a religious praise song and advice to women about cancer screening.
