Sahel Sounds is the blog of ethnomusicologist Christopher Kirkley, a.k.a. MeFi's own
iamck. It's about the contemporary music of the Sahel, which is the Southern border of the Sahara, focusing on West Africa. It has long been a region of great musical ferment. The most famous musicians today are Tinariwen (
previously), but there's a great deal more out there. Kirkley travels around trading music, Western songs in exchange for Saharan, which he mostly receives off cellphone memory cards. Kirkley has made three compilations,
Sahelsounds, the Promo CD and
Music from Saharan Cellphones volumes
1 and
2 (the numbers link to downloads). Kirkley has also collected and recorded
videos. The Guardian
interviewed Kirkley on the subject of cellphones' effect on Saharan music,
which he has written about. Mark Richardson of Pitchfork was prompted by one of Kirkley's collections to write about
musical scarcity in today's infoglut society. Besides the collections, there are a lot of other songs on the blog, the entire archive is wonderful and worth reading through.
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 12, 2010 -
12 comments
