Tinariwen's quest for greater visibility is helped by the fact that Carlos Santana, Robert Plant and Radiohead's Thom Yorke count themselves among the band's most vocal fans. What has hurt this group of nomadic Tuareg musicians from the southern Sahara region of Mali is that "Aman Iman" is only their third album since its members joined forces in 1982, after meeting while training as rebel fighters at a guerrilla camp in Libya.

Headed by four lead guitarists who all sing, the group's electrifying songs capture the raw spirit of rock at its most exotic and primordial. Gutbucket desert blue intertwine with swelling Arabic vocal lines that zig and zag at will. Haunting modal drones are punctuated by hand-clapped rhythms that gallop one moment, lurch the next, but never go quite where you expect.

By: George Varga