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Tinariwen

Bio

Tinariwen is a Malian band with an origin that can only inspire. During the Eighties, they were a collective formed by leader Ibrahim Ag Alhabib who, during the long nights in the militarized Tuareg camps, gave life to a unique sound made of traditional Saharan music and western rock.

Tinariwen was discovered in 1998 by the renowned and eclectic Franch band Lo’Jo, with whom in 2001 they organized the Festival au désert, a cultural event held in Essakene. Again with Lo’Jo and again in 2011, they produced their debut album The Radio Tisdas Sessions, which took its title from the eponymous radio station in which it was recorded.

With 2004’s Amassakoui they began to achieve international recognition, but it was with 2007’s Aman Iman, distributed in Italy by Ponderosa Music & Art that Tinariwen was consecrated the forefather of the desert blues genre. the album was praised by the biggest figures in music like Carlos Santana, Bono, Thom York, and Allmusic defined it as «a glorious, syncopated sound that makes the better part of rockers feel inferior», while Pitchfork nominated it as «the most powerful statement they have ever released».

In 2009 they recorded Imidiwan: Companions in an errant studio in the village of Tesaalit, Mali, and then they moved to the UK where they were invited to perform on the stage of the renowned Glastonbury Festival. In 2010 they represented Algeria for the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa and a year later they published Tassili which earned them a Grammy Award for Best Global Music Album.

Following some Tuareg rebellions, some members of Tinariwen moved to the United States to record their sixth album, Emmaar, which was released in 2012 and for which they toured internationally without Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who opted to stay with his family given the political turmoil in Mali during those years.

After publishing Elwan (2017) and completing a world tour, Tinariwen decided to embark on a journey through North-Western Sahara, a decision made also due to the impossibility to stay in their home due to further armed conflicts, from this experience was born Amadjar (2019), thus titles to honor the Mauritanian camp where they recorded the majority of the album under the Saharian starry sky.

Several thousand miles of ocean may divide the desert blues of Tinariwen and the authentic country music of rural America but the links are as palpable as they are romantic.
On Amatssou, their ninth studio album (2023), Tinariwen set out to explore these shared sensibilities as banjos, fiddles and pedal steel mix seamlessly with the Tuareg band’s trademark snaking guitar lines and hypnotic grooves.

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