Tulear Never Sleeps

Recording information: Mars Studio, Antananarivo (09/1999-11/1999).
Photographer: Alan James.
The broad joy that's Malagasy music continues to be a source of wonder. This compilation, named for the town of Tulear, in southern Madagascar, focuses primarily on the region's distinctive tsapiky style, played at street parties, and pushed along by guitar, accordion, and the local marovany. Immensely danceable, it's also fantastically melodic -- a trait shared with so much other music from the big island. One of the people behind the project is Malagasy guitarist D'Gary, who helped a number of bands record tracks in 2000. This compilation takes eight of the artists and just lets them go, pulling in an excellent diversity of sound, from the slowly hypnotic "Havelo," by Teta, to more riotous material from Los Bally. But whichever way you turn, it's completely irresistible, the kind of thing to get the feet pumping even as you sit and listen, with guitars sliding in and out of the tunes at remarkable speeds, and the harmonies (mostly female) just pushing everything further. Considering that most people on Big Red didn't even know about the existence of tsapiky until recently, for it to come to the rest of the world so quickly is a remarkable thing indeed. ~ Chris Nickson