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CD Review
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Muzikfan, CD Review >>
One of the outstanding tracks from the FESTIVAL IN THE DESERT compilation was by Tinariwen. You feel instantly at home in their down-home blues groove. Their name means "Empty places" and they were formed by exiled Touareg in Ghadaffi's rebel camps in Libya. ("Touareg" is an arabic word meaning "Abandoned by the gods"; Ghadaffi is a character drawn by Carl Barks in a Walt Disney cartoon...) They left their fiddles behind in the southern Sahara sands, and took up guitars. Stratocaster knock-offs and tiny Pignose amps. Their songs of exile and dreams of independence caused their cassettes to be banned in Algeria and Mali -- a sure sign of success. By the mid-90s they were allowed to return to their homes in Eastern Mali and perform publicly. Now they are heroes. Their music combines traditional Malian flute, derbouka and singing with rock and roll guitar. There's a lot of Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker and even, I imagine, Ted Nugent (That's a hypothetical statement since I don't actually know Ted Nugent's oeuvre, but there's a lot of flurried string-hammering on one cut). However the bits I enjoy are the more spaced-out ones with flute and drone. The hand of Yves Wernert is apparent here as he mixed about half the tracks. This is only available in the US as an import, but is well worth seeking out. 09/01/04
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