Haira (sometimes spelled Khaira) Arby has been given the title 'The Nightingale of the North" and I can attest to that. I heard her sing while sitting on a bus in Mali - torn leather seats, the afternoon heat pressing against the windows and the beautiful brown crisp landscape of Mali in the dry season rolling past. I found her cassette 'Ya Rassoul' at a kiosk in Djenne and now as I listen to it back in the UK I realise what a perfect soundtrack it is to Mali. You can hear drums that sound like camels feet, percussion that evoke desert sand and the rustling dry heat and in every song Haira's voice, with its incredible range and pitch, sounding like a dream. But what is there out there on Haira? Very little on the net and the people I asked in Mali loved her music but didn't seem to know much about her. What I have gleaned is she has performed at the Festival au Desert in 2003 and 2005, with a couple of cassettes released domestically, and then some European dates in march 2005 in Brussels and Holland. Banning Eyre of Afropop rummaged around in the archives and found a transcription of an interview Afropop did with Haira from 2003 which has helped put the pieces together. She is from the desert- from Agouni, north of Timbuktu - born into a family of mixed ethnicity a Songhai Arab mother and an Arab Berber father. You can hear this in her music - she sings in Sonrai, Arabic, Tamashek, the instruments and rhythms just as varied with electric guitar and trickling beats, calabash, traditional violin and guitar, drumming that creates that abrupt squared sound of music from that part of the country. But with no relations who were musicians preceding her and a father who forbade her to sing or to play music, Haira has had to go out on her own and carve her own path as a musician. Starting out by working with Orchestre Badema in Bamako, then performing at biennales, the festivals and then some dates in Europe in 02 and now some in 05. It's been a slow journey since the 1980's when she started to focus all her energies on her music. Like Haira herself, her music travels on an audio journey the essence of Mali - a meeting of compass points, religion, culture, the past and present. She sings about marriage, love, peace, the lives of the people from the region she comes from, development and democracy. The tracks on the 'Ya Rassoul' album are lovely and long - some over 6 minutes. There is 'Amandiath' which showcases that unique round sound of the traditional guitar. The production is so good you can hear the player's fingers tugging the strings, accompanied by the harsh haunting sound of the violin. Then the funky electric sound of 'Ehe Youma' with its intricate guitar moves, the soft slow bass guitar and all the while the call and response of the vocals, with the 'response' of the chorus just managing to hold down Haira's soaring 'call'. The language is new too - soft rounded vowels, rolling r's, guttural sounds - words like 'biobini' pronounced 'bwaibini' , the curvaceous 'sourgou'. Timing is everything - the layering, pausing and meandering of the music and instruments that act as a backdrop and allow Haira's voice to run free. The Malians love her and I just hope an international album release is only a matter of time and then the rest of us can have a taste of her magic. 'Ya Rassoul' is produced by Samassa Records, Mali. As yet, it is not available internationally…

Contributed by: Lydia Martin