Tinariwen

While its modern take on its native traditional Tuareg music hints broadly at the blues, Mali-based septet Tinariwen’s sound isn’t as dark as the most famous progenitor of the genre, the blues-tinted, late West African singer-guitarist Ali Farka Toure. The group brings sunshine to the sound, relying on uptempo sing-song chants and call-and-response choruses, but the urgency of the message is hard to miss.

When Tinariwen formed, its members were still rebel-camp soldiers in the war against the Malian government, giving its music a furious gravity; regardless of what the band sounded like, no one would question its right to sing the blues. On its most recent album, 2003’s Amassakoul (World Village), the guitars are insanely prominent, with as many as three or four on a single track. The communal vocals are not secondary—listen to the rap-inspired “Arawan” to feel the singers’ full wrath—but if the blues has any connection to Tinariwen’s music, it comes out in the riffs. While the vocalists tell their story (most members sing), at least one picker randomly whips out brooding, stuttering John Lee Hooker–ish lines that comment on the action without taking over the whole record. We suspect that the main guitarist of the group may be Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who gets his own solo feature spot on “Tenere Dafeo Nikchan” (“I’m in a Desert with a Wood Fire”).

Tinariwen is just as amped up live—the group put on a powerful performance at the Old Town Folk and Roots Fest in Welles Park last summer. If the guitar revolutionized Malian music this much, Lord knows what’ll happen if the musicians ever get their feet on a fuzz pedal.—James Porter