Tinariwen

Wexner Center

Thursday, October 28

            Not long ago the members of Tinariwen literally stood at a cultural crossroads.  Many Problems—most noticeably modernization and failed peace accords—forced the extinction of their traditional Saharan nomadic lifestyle.  After being exiled to Kidal, the group came together, discovered electric instruments and incorporated them into a tribal sound. 

            Their first international recordings, collected on Amassakoul (World Village), Could be lumped in with the bevy of domestically ignored world music, but the struggle to adapt to their new lives while keeping their past vital makes for soul-searching musical poetry unworthy of such a tag.  With rock guitars and drums in the mix, the hypnotic rhythms of “Chatma” and “Alkhar Dessouf” are closer to true psychedelia than the average Rough Guide comp.  What they’ve created from turmoil ids not far removed from the call-and-response of Fela Kuti, the cosmic overdrive of Acid Mother’s Temple and even lament of Delta blues.

—Kevin Elliot