Matador Records release ‘Afrique Victime’, the longawaited new album by Mdou Moctar. With ‘Afrique Victime’ the prodigious Tuareg guitarist and songwriter rips a new hole in the sky, boldly reforging contemporary Saharan music and ‘rock’ music by melding guitar pyrotechnics, fullblast noise and field recordings with poetic meditations on love, religion, women’s rights, inequality and Western Africa’s exploitation at the hands of colonial powers. The music listeners are the beneficiaries of the staggeringly powerful do-it-yourself musical ethic of Mdou Moctar - the man and the band - who’ve worked so hard to bring the spirits of families and communities in Niger to the West. ‘Afrique Victime’ sounds and feels like a Tuareg hand reaching down from the sky and we are very lucky for this chance to get lifted.