Friday, May 04, 2007

Listening To: Tinariwen



I don’t know much about this group of musicians; they are from Saharan Africa and are Touaregs. I don’t know what they are singing or even what language they are singing in. But I do know that the music is fantastic.

Think Chicago Bluesmen, Led Zeppelin and African musicians all sitting in tents in the desert drinking tea, smoking a water pipe and making delicious rhythmic jams until the sun slowly comes up again. This music is like taking a vacation in an exotic foreign land and finding that they like Jimi Hendrix and Muddy Waters and incorporate the best of bluesy American music into their traditional tribal chants, drones and polyrhythms. Bollywood could make musicals to this. Hippies and Dead Heads could dance all night to this stuff. Dervishes could whirl their way to Allah to this music.
Wow. This is fun, funky, trippy stuff. Unwind, tap your feet, sway those hips, and enjoy Tinariwen.

You can download tracks at eMusic.com: http://www.emusic.com/artist/11608/11608380.html
And the band has a website: http://tinariwen.com/

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