Damily & Toliara Tsapiky Band — Fihisa

Typically, these conditions would clearly come under the purview of blues: hearts sunken, busted, and torn by grieving loss. Not tonight, though. Definitely not tonight.

Fihisa airdrops you in. Instantly, you’re out yonder—way out yonder—in the Malagasy bush: vast flatlands unfold beneath a widescreen sky for as far as the eye can see. Yet cutting through the dust and the heat of the remote backcountry is—of all things—the beckoning pull of a restless electric guitar reigning over the landscape, thanks to the PA system it is happily brutalizing. As luck would have it, an open-air event is in full swing in the village of Tongobory and the dirt dancefloor is already packed.

It is preordained to be a great night because Damily—hometown hero and guitar god of the zooming regional style known as tsapiky (pronounced tsa-PEEK)—is the one holding court. Couldn’t ask for better. He’s returned to Madagascar, the island nation off the southeastern coast of Africa, with his lean but oh-so energized Toliara Tsapiky Band in tow. That means it is time to get lost in the groove for a while.

In simpler terms: The sweltering party is on. Ironically, the trigger for this grand elation is a funeral, of sorts, to mark the passing of Damily’s 90-year-old mother, Melo. Rather than sinking the mood down, the traditional ceremony—fihisa—course-corrects by celebrating life in an eruption of contagious joy.

In typical fashion, Damily’s fingertips get the ball rolling by continuously pinching off riff after riff from the strings of his blue guitar, then tying them together into bright, twinkling lines that dance across the drummer’s skipping beat. A bass, likewise electrified, shoves along the pulse from the inside. The singer’s high-pitched delivery is no less excited as is the crowd pushing in around the band, packing in elbow-to-elbow—if not dancing. Being anything but rigid in structure, single songs possess an open-ended spontaneity to snake all night long—or at least until the poor generator gives out from exhaustion. This is tsapiky, alive in all its natural splendor.

“Zao lehireo” and “Zaho ka ambaranao” uncoil quickly, each in extended bursts. “Sabotsky maraindray” likewise stretches to the six-minute mark atop a mad tempo but not before drawing to a furious close that engages an accordion in a climatic three-way battle with guitar and drums. Despite unplugging, “Tindrianay ze malemy” is no less kinetic. The same can be said of “Zavao ny lala,” a bubbling percussionist’s delight, and “Lihy avaratsy,” the flaming instrumental that leaves no room for doubt of the accordionist’s lightning-fast reflexes. Damily sits out both, yet the dust still never has a chance to settle.

And tucked away inside a nearby straw hut, tape rolls on a portable recorder. The music is captured. But so is the atmosphere, represented by stray voices, spontaneous shouts and approving whistles from revelers. If you’re hungry to get even closer to the experience, then enter through the visual portal provided by the onsite video filmed during “Zao lehireo.” (Enter below.)

Someone once said, repeatedly: “There’s no place like home … There’s no place like home.” And, indeed, there is no place to better validate that point than distantly out in the wild Malagasy scrubland when Damily and his Toliara Tsapiky Band let loose their dizzying, top-of-the-world, swing-the-blues-by-its-tail ecstasy. Fihisa saves you the 9,000-plus-mile journey.

Label: Damily

Release date: 2/7/25

Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski