Tinariwen – Imidiwan: Companions
Reviewed by Sadie O., 10/15/09
Touareg desert blues with electric guitar. Generally very simple instrumentation, call and response vocals with mixed-gender chorus, some elements similar to other northern African traditional forms (such as Gnawa), and some elements similar to American and European blues – but those are just hints of things; nobody besides Tinariwen sounds anything like Tinariwen.
I still don’t know where they plug in the guitars. Do they carry generators around on camels? Things like this keep me up at night…
It’s all gorgeous, it smells like the desert, and it’s extremely seductive.
1. 3:32 **vocal chorus, very mellow and downtempo guitar and lovely bass.
2. 3:50 ***guitar, hand claps, building into rather uptempo loping beat very much reminiscent of a camel walk. Really builds energy.
3. 5:29 ****desert blues, downtempo and swaying, absurdly cool. Lots of spoken word in Tamashek (which I think is Touareg Arabic.)
4. 5:41 **very sparse, bluesy vocals, fingersnaps. Great sounds of fingers sliding on guitar strings.
5. 4:10 ***slow bluesy slinky groove with lots of bottom end. Gorgeous.
6. 4:52 **spoken word intro, solo guitar and rather breathy vocals. Grows into another slow, bluesy shuffle.
7. 4:49 ***slightly downtempo country blues sound – kinda like an African Canned Heat or something.
8. 3:46 ***slow and flowing, sweet vocals. Gets lots of great percussion after first chorus. Just keeps getting better and better.
9. 5:43 **very light playing of guitar, soft singing. Terrific interplay of guitars/bass in second half.
10. 3:17 ****fabulous simple guitar with great chord changes. Male chanting, very bluesy and mysterious.
11. 4:54 ***slide guitar and spoken word. That’s it – mom, sorry, but I’ve run away to join the Touaregs. Play it – you’ll understand.
12. 3:22 **slow and sweet – a love song to his people.
13. 4:53 ***slower and sweeter – for a few moments. Then some cool electric guitars, loping beat and big chords. Gets uptempo for last minute and a half.
14. 4:20 very slow fade in, then sort of drawn out chimes – don’t know how great this will come through, roaring down 280…