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Yet another CD review
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The Beat, Yet another CD review >>
West Africa's Sahara Desert may be dry as a bone. But Tinariwen's music flows as steadily as a river with its rippling percussion, looping electric guitar, and a compulsive beat that suggests determination and a lack of hurry. Just the thing for slogging through the sand. The Tuareg nomads who call themselves Kel Tamashek, or "those who speak Tamashek," are one of Africa's many nationless peoples. You can hear their home base of Mali's Sahel region in The Radio Tisdas Sessions (World Village). The snapping guitar arpeggios and tapped percussion recall the proto-blues of Ali Farka Toure, whose birthplace borders the Sahel. The plaintive voices and loose unison singing carry vague echoes of North Africa's Gnawa people as well, but calm transcendence rather than ecstasy carries the beat. Turn on this disc, and it's difficult to turn it off as the music seems to merge with the listener's environment as surely as wind, clouds, trees and those annoying people who expect you to work at the office rather than write cd reviews. Oh, sorry... Immediately pleasant as Tinariwen's oeuvre may be, it takes a few listenings for the songs to open up and distinguish themselves. "Zin Es Gourmeden" with its echo-laden, super-heavy electric guitar is a fast standout, especially since the female chorus cranks up the amplitude and accompanying wraith-like flavor to protrude above the soloing, "tessalit" darts in the opposite direction with acoustic guitars and a bluesy lead vocal with the gravel of a John Lee Hooker. It's lovely, soulful music full of contrasts between delicate textures and the constant earthy push.
--Bob Tarte 12/19/02
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