Amazon.co.uk Review
Prior to the release of
Aman Iman: Water is Life, it seemed that few people had heard of Tinariwen. Formed in a refugee camp in the southern Sahara desert, this Touareg band have released two previous albums since 2001, garnering awards and critical acclaim around the world. But 2007's
Aman Iman: Water is Life is probably their best album yet. It's certainly the most accessible, particularly to music fans who would never dream of delving into world music. The circular rhythms of the bass and drums lay down a simple--almost hypnotic--beat, which is then given a rougher edge by the electric riffs of the band's four lead guitarists. It sounds like an even more primal, stripped down blues taken back to its roots (assuming, that is, that the roots of blues were sung in French and Tamashek). Throughout, producer Justin Adams (taking a break from his regular work as Robert Plant's guitarist in Strange Sensation) commendably avoids the high-gloss polish that too often plagues world music albums. This is rebel music in the true sense of the term. With
Aman Iman: Water is Life, Tinariwen have created a rock album that's unique, vibrant and wholly original. Few Western bands can boast the same.
--Ted Kord
CD Description
Sub-Saharan guitar blues has taken a strong enough footholdin the world music scene to qualify as its own genre, with its own stars and aesthetics and, now, its own alternative offshoots like Tinariwen. Formed in the 1980s in Muammar Qaddafi's rebel training camps, this group of Touareg nomads andformer soldiers play droning, heartfelt, trance-inducing blues. Like their Malian peers, they favor hypnotic, single-note guitar runs with gutbucket vocals that double the guitar melody. Where they differ is in an improvisational group dynamic that adds elements of funk, rock, and a certain hallucinatory desert feel that seems less inspired by American blues forms and more an organic outpouring of pure inspiration, creating an utterly compelling, sui generis sound. On this 2007 release, their third album, these guys sing and play as if their lives depend on it.