Due for release 3rd May 2024 via Matador
CD / Ltd Blood Red LP
‘Funeral For Justice’ is the new album by Mdou Moctar. Recorded at the
close of two years spent touring the globe following the release of 2019
breakout ‘Afrique Victime’, it captures the Nigerien quartet in ferocious form.
The music is louder, faster, and more wild. The guitar solos are feedbackscorched
and the lyrics are passionately political. Nothing is held back or
toned down. The quartet will perform at the Coachella Music and Arts
Festival in April and will embark on a US headline tour in June with further
dates to follow.
The songs on ‘Funeral For Justice’ speak unflinchingly to the plight of Niger
and of the Tuareg people. “This album is really different for me,” explains
Moctar, the band’s singer, namesake, and indisputably iconic guitarist. "Now
the problems of terrorist violence are more serious in Africa. When the US
and Europe came here, they said they're going to help us, but what we see is
really different. They never help us to find a solution.”
Mdou Moctar in its current iteration is first and foremost a band. Alongside
Moctar, it consists of rhythm guitarist Ahmoudou Madassane, drummer
Souleymane Ibrahim, and American bassist and producer Mikey Coltun.
The band got their start performing at traditional weddings. These are high
energy events - amps are dialled up to 11 and the whole town is invited to
attend. “I grew up in the DC punk scene and this is no different,” explains
Coltun. “It’s a DIY punk show: people bring generators, they crank their
amps. Things are broken, but they make it work.”
Conveying that energy and feeling of community to a new audience has been
an important goal for the band. Their first concerts in the US were
sometimes, mistakenly, organized to be tame, seated affairs. That’s no
longer the case. Over 100s of shows, they’ve proven themselves as one of
the world’s most vital rock bands - a group rooted in Tuareg tradition, but
undeniably its own singular organism. An Mdou Moctar concert is now
recognized to be a place for dancing, if not full-force moshing.
“‘Ilana’ was the gateway album, saying that this is a raw rock band. And
‘Afrique Victime’ was a summation of that vision,” says Coltun, who recorded
the entire record over five days in a mostly unfurnished house in upstate
New York. “With ‘Funeral For Justice’, I really wanted this to shine with the
political message because of everything that's going on. As the band got
tighter and heavier live, it made sense to capture this urgency and this
aggression - it wasn’t a forced thing, it was very natural.”