Guitar luminary + Niger’s folk hero Omara “Bombino” Moctar has shared new single “Ayo Nigla” + accompanying music video, taken from his upcoming album ‘Sahel,’ out September 15th via Partisan Records.

“Ayo Nigla” unplugs Bombino’s trademark face-melting guitar mastery and turns it into one of the subtlest, heartfelt songs he has ever recorded. In a rare moment of acoustic vulnerability, Bombino mourns a love gone unreciprocated and eventually lost forever. He explains: “This song is dedicated to a girl that I loved too much and to whom I had declared my passion but went ignored. I lived with this love in solitude, deep in my soul.”

‘Sahel’ takes its name from the vast African region spanning East-West from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, and is the highly anticipated follow-up to his 2018 album ‘Deran,’ which turned Bombino into the first-ever Grammy-nominated artist from Niger. “Ayo Nigla” follows previous single “Aitma,” (listen here).

To bring the ‘Sahel’ to life, Bombino worked closely with Welsh producer David Wrench (David Byrne, Frank Ocean, Caribou, Goldfrapp, The xx, Sampha), decamping with his bandmates to a studio in Casablanca for ten days to lay down the album. ‘Sahel’ is Bombino’s most personal and powerful work yet. It’s also his most sonically diverse, a quality he set out to achieve from the start, and one that is meant to directly mirror the complex tapestry of cultures and people that make up the Sahel itself. The music ranges in theme from the plight of the Tuareg, to the ache of lost love, to the follies of youth. Opener “Tazidert,” which was released this spring, preaches patience even as the music itself urges you to stand up and move. He says, “the general plight of the Tuareg is always on my mind and while I’ve addressed it in my music all along, I wanted to give it a special focus on this album.”

Read more about the creation of ‘Sahel’ here.

‘Deran’ earned Bombino career-best reviews, including a major New York Times profile, features with All Things Considered, NPR Music, Billboard + more. Noisey went as far as to declare him “World's Best Guitarist™”. The album received a Grammy nod for Best World Music Album, and also won Best Global Album at the A2IM Libera Awards. Bombino has performed at Bonnaroo, Coachella, Carnegie Hall, Hollywood Bowl, Roskilde, and Newport Folk Festival, and two of his previous albums were produced by Dave Longstreth (Dirty Projectors) and Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys). His list of on-the-record fans includes: Keith Richards, Stevie Wonder, Robert Plant + more.

‘Sahel’ tracklisting:

1. Tazidert
2. Alwane
3. Aitma
4. Si Chilan
5. Ayo Nigla
6. Darfuq
7. Ayes Sachen
8. Nik Sant Awanha
9. Itisahid
10. Mes Amis

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