Highline Ballroom; Tue 27
Since it first came to the West’s attention following 2001’s inaugural Festival au Désert, a gathering of North African musicians now held annually in a remote region of the Sahara, Tinariwen’s backstory has taken on legendary proportions. That tale is an ethnomusicologist’s dream: After meeting in an Algerian refugee camp during the 1980s, the group’s founding members participated in a 1990 revolt and continue to play a key role in the Tuareg people’s struggles with the Malian government. But that alone doesn’t explain how the loose-knit collective of nomadic tribesmen became a major draw on the European festival circuit, or why Robert Plant has described their sound as “the music I’ve been looking for all my life.”
For that, consult the group’s remarkable third album, Aman Iman: Water Is Life (World Village). Tracks such as “Ahimana” and “Tamatant Tilay” offer the sensation of discovering a missing link between African and American folk music, as traditional Tuareg dirges, amplified through the use of electric guitar, take on a feel remarkably similar to Mississippi Delta blues.
At their live performances, Tinariwen’s vocalists fill every gap with one message: “Welcome to the desert.” The hypnotic rhythms that follow are every bit as transformative as that greeting suggests.
—Jesse Serwer
11/27/07 >> 
