Tears Of Injustice [CD]

If "Funeral for Justice" was the sound of indignation, "Tears of Injustice" is the sound of mourning. With the new album "Tears of Injustice", which will be released in February 2025, Mdou Moctar has reinterpreted his masterpiece "Funeral for Justice". This has been completely re-recorded and arranged with acoustic and traditional instruments.

The album is the band's contemplative evolution - the calm counterpart to the intense original. In July 2023, Mdou Moctar was on tour in the USA when a military junta overthrew Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum and imprisoned him in the presidential residence. With the country's borders closed, Mdou Moctar, Ahmoudou Madassane and Souleymane Ibrahim were unable to return to their families. Although plans were already in place to record material to accompany Funeral for Justice - which was still months away from release at the time - the project suddenly gained urgency and depth. Just two days after finishing the tour in New York City, the quartet began recording Tears of Injustice at Bunker Studio in Brooklyn under the direction of engineer Seth Manchester.

"We wanted to create our own interpretation of 'Funeral' that people could experience in a different way," says Mikey Coltun, the band's US-based bassist and producer. "We're constantly experimenting with the arrangements at our concerts. Now we wanted to show that we can also realize this creative diversity on an album. When we play a stripped-down set, it shows a whole new side of the band - it becomes something unique." They decided to record Tears together in one room and to make the session spontaneous and unstructured. "We didn't decide on the arrangements in advance," recalls Coltun. "We just played, captured the right feeling and recorded the songs. Everything came together quickly and the main recordings were completed in just two days."

The hypnotic 8-minute track Imouhar is actually made up of two runs recorded back-to-back - Moctar barely stopped playing, so the takes blended seamlessly. After a month, the band was finally able to return to Niger, and Coltun gave Madassane a Zoom recorder. The rhythm guitarist used it to record a group of Tuaregs performing traditional call-and-response chants, which were later incorporated into the final mix. On Funeral for Justice, the anger about the difficult situation of Niger and the Tuareg people is expressed through the volume and tempo of the music. On Tears, the songs retain this weight, but without electric amplification. They are imbued with deep sadness and convey the suffering of a people living in constant poverty, under colonial exploitation and political upheaval. It is Tuareg protest music in its rawest and most essential form.

"When Mdou writes the lyrics, he often does so with an acoustic guitar," explains Coltun. "This brings you closer to the original moment. The heaviness remains, but the intensity is felt in a more forceful way."