Tulear Never Sleeps
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various Malagasy guitarists
Tulear Never Sleeps
Tsapiky guitar music from south west Madagascar

$17.99

Fierce, highly energized guitar music (electric and acoustic) from Tulear in Madagascar. Ian Anderson in fRoots says the set contains "the fearsome lead guitarists and full-scream singers who fuel the region's all night dances, plus a smattering of the acoustic roots of the genre. It's a set that's right up there with other legendary Earthworks compilations like The Indestructible Beat Of Soweto."

Listen:
Ela lia
Tsy an-jaza andao tsika holy

Other recordings to hear:
Abdul Tee Jay - PalmWine A Go Go - guitar music from Sierra leone
Gumboot Guitars (South Africa)
Forgotten Guitars from Mozambique
Origins of Guitar music in Congo and Northern Zambia
Mansour Seck (Senegalese guitarist extraordinare!)
More music from Madagascar

The reverb-drenched, finger picked electric guitars strongly resemble South and West African pop guitar styles in timbre and note patterns, but with distinctive, local twists... Cool stuff! - Stacy Phillips, RW
Read the complete RootsWorld review

"This music is hot, sweaty, happy and compulsive - perfect for summer dance parties. If you want non-stop pulsating rhythms, bubbling guitar riffs, vibrant high-pitched women singing up a storm and enough wild exuberance to drag you back onto the dance floor over and over this compilation is for you. Yes, it is exotic but it is also instantly accessible." - Sydney Morning Herald

Featured on Afropop Worldwde's "Unearthed Treasures" program and NPR's "All Things Considered".

The record label says:
Tulear is a city in the remote, hot and dusty southwest of the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar. At nighttime, when the burning day has cooled a little, tsapiky bands play at wild open-air dances in every neighborhood of the city. Over belting singers and tireless drummers, fearsome guitarists scatter dazzling fractured lines of notes. Crowds of revelers, most of them swigging from bottles of toka (the local rum), dance all night. Nobody sleeps. Tulear never sleeps D'Gary is the most famous guitarist from southwestern Madagascar, but he's from a rural village some distance from Tulear and he doesn't play tsapiky, which is an urban electric-guitar style (though both styles are based on the traditional stringed instruments of the region, the kabosy and the marovany). None the less, his enthusiasm and influence were crucial to getting this album made. Comprising 15 tracks by 10 bands recorded expressly for this CD, Tulear Never Sleeps introduces the thrilling sound of tsapiky to the world beyond Madagascar.

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