Tinariwen Goes For Adds

Beloved Tuareg psych-blues group, lauded by Brian Eno and Thom Yorke, returns with they’re eighth international release featuring Kurt Vile, Mark Lanegan & Alain Johannes (Queens of the Stone Age), and guitarist Matt Sweeney (Run The Jewels, Cat Power).

 

 

 

Tinariwen‘s Elwan comes from a band that has been triumphantly touring the world at the same time as the frontiers that encircle their desert home have been closing and forcing them into exile. In recent years, Tinariwen’s homeland, a Saharan mountain range between north-eastern Mali and southern Algeria, has been transformed into a conflict zone. While the songs on the new record evoke those cherished deserts of home, they were recorded far away in two distinctive bursts. First, the band traveled to Rancho de la Luna studios in California’s Joshua Tree desert, with sessions engineered by Andrew Schepps (Johnny Cash, Jay-Z). Musicians who know the place well dropped by to add their own touches to the group’s pre-industrial boogie, including Kurt Vile, guitarist Matt Sweeny (Johnny Cash, Bonnie Prince Billy / Will Oldham), multi-instrumentalist Alan Johannes (who produced the first few albums by Queens of the Stone Age), and QOTSA singer Mark Lanegan. The second wave of recording occurred later, in a Southern Moroccan oasis accompanied by the local musical youth and a group of Berber ‘gnawa’ trance musicians. The results will appeal to lovers of the band’s sensual and abrasive riffs – now buoyed by American guitars to reinforce the group’s signature ishumar style – as well as those who love the funky, danceable side of Tinariwen that comes through courtesy of a rhythm section in the mold of Sly and Robbie.

The result is musically powerful and yet poignant: every song evokes a lost world that can no longer be found, with an emotional range that goes from nostalgia for a joyous past to the tragic recent loss of a territory and the dreams it nourished.

“A groundbreaking Tuareg music collective” -NPR Music

RIYL: Bombino, The Very Best, Ali Farka Toure, Group Doueh, Goat, Amadou & Mariam

Recommended Tracks: #6 “Ténéré Tàqqàl,” #2 “Nizzagh Ijbal,” #9 “Assàwt,” #5 “Ittus”

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Label: Anti-