Troupe Ecole Tudu Oyiwane

If you don’t know Sahel Sounds then now would be a good time to acquaint yourself. The excellent label releases new and archival records that originated across the northern African region of the Sahel. Their latest drop, Troupe Ecole Tudu’s Oyiwane, is a 1985 collection that had previously been unavailable outside of Niger. The TET were an all-girls choir from a school in the country’s Agadez region. With its massed vocals and Ali Farka Toure-esque guitar accompaniment (provided by the girls’ teacher Barmo) this rare record is representative of a style that would become popular in Niger over the subsequent years. The recording is grainy and often shrill, but this is still a vital bit of listening.