Alhousseini Anivolla and Guy Buttery

“I am moved by Guy Buttery's musical language and journey: this musician from South Africa is painting a framework, transforming his roots and the richness of his mixed culture into an inspired language that has become very personal and yet universal. This is touching, refreshing and amazing to witness." - Guitar Player Magazine

Rolling Stone Magazine

“… his music has a subtle grace and power all of its own. Though his technical prowess is also bewildering, Buttery immerses himself entirely into the soul of his guitar, coaxing sonic shapes and forms of such startling originality that his instrument acts as a kind of lightning conductor for the sound of another realm.” - Rolling Stone magazine

“Unorthodox twenty-something Guy Buttery throws down the gauntlet with an album of incredible versatility and imagination. There are times when it sounds as if there’s a seven-piece band backing Guy Buttery, so complex and rich is the sound, but it’s just him and his acoustic guitar exploring myriad textures and rhythms with an ingenious imagination and scant regard for music industry rules. It’s the kind of album that reveals something new at every turn, the kind of album that never gets old or outstays its welcome.” - JHB live

"In a country with a vast dearth of fingerstyle guitarists, Guy Buttery does my heart fiercely proud. He is part of the next wave of young guitar players who stands out head and shoulders above the rest. With music at once uncompromising yet intensely passionate and articulate Guy is on a major guitar roll - may it roll long and wide!" - Tony Cox

"Guy Buttery is the prodigiously gifted talent behind "When I Grow Up...” an instrumental journey with Buttery and his guitar through the emotional hinterlands of KwaZulu-Natal. The title of the album is both ironic and sweetly appropriate. Buttery is a mere 18 years old, yet the content of the album suggests a mind and a talent, decades older." - Independent on saturday

Posted by Saxon Baird, August 7, 2012

Looks like Niger has done it again. A new track from Niger-born desert blues guitar player Alhousseini Anivolla has hit the web and it’s excellent. Known as the singer and guitarist in Etran Finatawa, Anivolla is prepping the release of a forthcoming solo album Anewal/The Walking Man via Riverboat Records on August 13th. The song titled “Imoussanan” is a sprawling, energetic track clocking in well over the five-plus minute. A cyclical groove hits and Anivolla locks in with his exceptional guitar chops resulting in an ecstatic, hypnotic state of classic Niger desert Tuareg blues. Anivolla has also recently released a video for the song “Imadanan Id’Madiaka” which discusses common disputes between farmers and nomadic shepherds over land in Niger, an issue causing divisions that are fracturing society. In the track, Alhousseini urges the groups to work together towards peace in hopes of advancing the Niger economy.
- Afropop

Sunday 12 August 2012
The Tuareg desert rock (not blues, as some have it) of Tinariwen and Etran Finatawa becomes a retrospective affair on this debut by the latter's guitarist.
The production is so microscopic that you can sometimes hear the click of plectrum on strings as much as the notes themselves. Not to mention the subtle rattle of a shaker suggesting a hubbub of Saharan insect life. Cross-legged on the ground rather than crutch-thrusting rock, but no less effective for it.
- The Independent UK

“Aficianados of the burgeoning desert blues scene owe it to themselves to listen to this fine record, as do fans of guitar playing, followers of trends in world music or music lovers in general. This is a terrific album that deserves a wide audience.” (pop matters Aug 30th 2012) - Pop Matters

“It’s got everything that fans of this stuff have been devouring ever since desert blues went global: hypnotic two-chord jams, trance-inducing beats, biting blues-infused guitar and in Anivolla’s case, warmly laid-back vocals sung in his local vernacular. Anivolla is an incisive and remarkably subtle guitarist, varying his attack on the strings, adding minute levels of natural distortion, his incisive, blues-infused phrases ringing out over long, swaying vamps. By the slowly unwinding standards of this music, the opening track, Immousan – a message to the elders to pass along their wisdom to the young generation – is remarkably catchy, briskly swaying and spiced with spiky hammer-on guitar phrases.” (New York Music Daily; Aug 2012) - New York Music Daily

(...) They now face the erosion of their old age cultures and the desertification of their lands.(...) Most of Etran Finatawa´s songs revolve around Alhousseini Mohamed Anivolla´s repeating guitar lines:not chords, but picked, syncopated notes and trills. - New York Times