Description
Tinariwen, a Tuareg outfit hailing from Mali, is one of the more well-known ‘desert blues’/African groups internationally. They’ve consistently attracted high-profile musical collaborators and even sport a Grammy for their 2011 album Tassili. Armed almost exclusively with guitars, the sizeable (and variable) ensemble layers folk, blues and indigenous styles under music that is at once trancelike and fiercely present, often containing political overtones related to the turmoil the band sees in West Africa. With the new reissue of their first two internationally available LPs, The Radio Tisdas Sessions and Amassakoul, the band is ripe for rediscovery, & hopefully opening them up to an even larger audience around the world.
It’s not difficult to hear why The Radio Tisdas Sessions caught on with listeners. From opening track “Le Chant des Fauves,” its hypnotic guitars and plaintive vocals fit comfortably within the ironically narrow parameters of “world music”. Radio Tisdas gradually reveals its pleasures as you sink into it.
