Tsapiky is a music honed at the crossroads of tradition and the contemporary, rooted in the indigenous rhythms of southern Madagascar while absorbing outside influences from mainland Africa and beyond. As a guitarist and composer, Damily is one of its key figures, driving forward the very genre that helped define him. Until now he has expressed himself mainly through the voices of the singers who accompany his band; on this latest album he sings himself for the first time, opening up new horizons. Recorded and mixed in just three days in the studio with engineer Peter Deimel. Memories of village life in the '80s—boomboxes from Pecto, Radio Mozambique, East African 7-inches, Malagasy national hits—intersect naturally with possession rituals and the practices of local healers, and to that intimacy is added a second life lived far from Madagascar, unfolding as a territory all its own. Highly recommended. (Original Japanese text by Adachi)