Tinariwen @ 9:30 Club

The Tinariwen backstory is the stuff of legends. Tuareg refugees from Mali living across the border in the desert of Libya, they were recruited to serve in Muammar Ghaddafi's army of the Sahara. They met during military training, and began working out a blend of North and West African music through jams of traditional songs and tunes about the plight of the Tuareg people and their way of life in the Sahara.

Over the past ten years, their international notoriety has grown by leaps and bounds, buoyed by a 2001 headlining set at the Festival in the Desert in northern Mali. In the past few years, write-ups in the New York Times and Rolling Stone have brought a little more attention in the United States, and their third LP, Aman Iman ("Water is Life") seemed like the hip namedrop of 2007. For good reason: group founder Ibrahim Ag Alhabib had this weird tinny, deceptively simple guitar sound that came off as a sort of Tuareg Neil Young, getting more out of pure feel than anything technically brilliant.

On Friday night at the 9:30 Club though, there was plenty of carefully crafted musicianship to match the group's emotive call-and-response vocals -- which are all in Tamashek, by the way -- and their loping hand-drum beats. Slower numbers like "Assouf" had a darker, bluesy edge, more about the deliberate pulse of the drums and the echoing vocals.

Other songs were less understated. The opening guitar notes of "Matadjem Yinmixan" got a roar out of the audience, and it signaled the band's intentions to pick up the pace and get the party started. It's safe to say only a very select few in the crowd had any idea what they were singing along to, but with such a soulful and tuneful song, it is nearly impossible to not get swept up along in the fervor of the moment.

Other standouts included "Cler Achel," the definition of a slow burn, and "Imidiwan Winakalin." During the latter, ululations from the band's female vocalist were echoed by a couple audience members, who epitomized the kind of sheer joy always present in Tinariwen's music. Like Sigur Rós, Tinariwen utilizes language that most people don't really understand: what's left over is a kind of raw emotion, usually joyful, evidenced by the massive smiles and lofted fists amongst the grooving 9:30 Club crowd.

Are Tinariwen the best at what they do? Are they the best "desert blues" band on the planet? Though I've listened to their counterparts (Toumast and Tartit are good places to start), it's hard to analyze their music without a deeper familiarity with its roots. I can tell you that they are all good musicians -- the funky bass parts are often nothing short of stunning -- and they have an unbelievable ability to stay tight while maintaining a loose-limbed fluidity. They're also about as gracious as they come, communicating their gratitude to be up there playing for us by blowing kisses, pumping fists, and meekly uttering "Thanks, merci, shukran" after each song.

But they'd be nowhere without that joy -- the joy of a jumping leg kick from the bassist mid-solo, the joy of a high ululating vocal, of a drum beat accelerating out of control to close out a song, of clapping your hands simply along because its impossible not to. It's the reason this band has struck a chord in the States where other "world music" acts may have not, and it's the reason I'll never miss another chance to see Tinariwen.