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fRoots, October 2001
© fRoots Magazine all rights reserved
Mark Cooper – The Word (UK
"An entrancing surprise."
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Customer Reviews
The Touaregs have recently experienced a torrid time, being herded into camps while the old colonial power and the new independent countries of north Africa dispute the permeability of their borders. It might be a tradition that the Touareg roam the desert, but modern boundaries show sparse concern for tradition.
Tinariwen's music arose as a protest against their imprisonment. These are songs which follow a traditional style - the emphasis is in the use of the voice and the telling of a story, nurturing the words to entrance your audience. These are hardy people. They respect the power of the word and the strength of a song. Although the CD 'sleeve notes' do not provide a translation, the emotion comes across. Their rhythms are not as mechanistic or as frenetic as many Western bands - the beat you follow here is more cerebral, more akin to the pace of desert life.
The recording lacks the over-production associated with many Western recordings. This is sparse music, in keeping with its situation. The human voice is the easiest instrument to carry on a camel or horse. It is served up with assurance, here, the lead being echoed by a female or male chorus. There are no frills or pretensions. First and foremost, the music appeals to you as being honest. We have no hype here, no self-infatuation, merely human beings enjoying the pleasures of communicating with others.
The sounds are hypnotic - they carry you along and energise you with their simplicity and calm energy. This is refreshing music, music to cleanse your pallet of all the noise you hear on the radio. This is music to which you can relate, wherever you come from.
The male vocals are accompanied by great guitar rhythms and melodies ... sometimes a female chorus responds to the male vocals. This traditional music is called "Tishoumaren" or "Ishumar" for short and is in the "new style" accompanied by guitar instead of the traditional lute. Modern guitarists & pop musicians such as Bob Marley, John Lennon, & Bob Dylan influecned their music, the liner notes inform us. The language sounds Arabic and is called "Kel Tamashek".
There is a plaintif quality to the vocals, an expression of sincere yearning for freedom while struggling for rights and freedom. They basically sing about the right to survive ... The music was banned both in Mali and Algeria in the 1980s and available only on the black market. Even then, if someone was caught with it, the result was beatings or worse. In every sense, this is a historical recording of the struggle to stay alive of a nomadic people, whose lifestyle is threatened by modern politics. This is what the vocalists are singing about. The tribe has been marginalized outsiders who swallow up their land and territory. This is a valuable recording on a spiritual, political, and human level. It is music that represents a dream for independence that may just be out of reach. They express their hopes and needs through this great music which reminds us of their cause. Erika Borsos (bakonyvilla)
Recorded in a radio studio during the few hours when they had electricity, this album is less produced than their last two full studio albums, but although at first listen this can make it seem less sparkling, it also gives the album an atmosphere that is more brooding and intense.
I'd thoroughly recommend this for any Tinariwen fans, or anyone wanting to hear a cross-section of this extraordinary band's material performed in a way that is probably the closest any recording has got to how they'd sound if they really were sitting round a campfire.
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