Tarika 10: Beasts, Ghosts & Dancing With History cdRoots Home Page More music from Madagascar Read Customer Reviews

Search for music Need Help?

Tarika
Tarika 10: Beasts, Ghosts & Dancing With History
$16.99

A 10th anniversary enhanced CD by one of Madagascar's most celebrated bands, including rare tracks and 2 videos.

Listen:

Ten years after they shed the Sammy and became simply Tarika, here's a retrospective from the band that imprinted Madagascar on the musical brain of the world. Others may have played their part, but Tarika's achievement has been something else again. Time magazine named them one of the top ten bands on the planet. At the same time, they are extremely popular in Madagascar and influential too. Leader/ singer/ songwriter Hanitra Rasoanaivo wrote a song about a street-level pastry unknown to the gentry which was such a hit that nowadays even the Hilton sells it. Good song, too - it's called 'Koba' and it's very catchy. You can hear it and watch it on video too if you put this CD in a computer. The songs here start at Bibiango, moving through Son Egal, D and Soul Makassar, with a live track from WOMAD and a couple of remixes, one of which, by Transglobal Underground, is a real growler the earthquake rhythm from 6000 fathoms, and those lovely clear, joyful voices on top. But seen live at a gig some years ago, I found Tarika's rhythmic pulse compulsive even with low-intensity amplification and no drums; the cascading figures on the valiha zithers and the general animation and velocity are potent. And those who didn't get up to dance quick enough got a bollocking from Hanitra, which also helped. In fact, the lady carries her musical expression with serious cultural and educational intent. Tarika's Son Egal album, for example, was a work researching popular history, looking into the colonial French use of West African troops to put down a Malagasy uprising in 1947, casting light in previously murky corners. Soul Makassar was also ambitious. You can hear echoes of Indonesia and Polynesia in fast-strummed Malagasy rhythms, the flavour of the vocal harmonies, a certain sing-song effect. Hanitra, following the thread, went roots-hunting on the other side of the Indian Ocean to Sulawesi where she found ancient stories and people "who look like us, eat like us, have beliefs like us, thousands of miles away". The story is on the CD. - Rick Sanders, fROOTS