Tinariwen - 2010 U.S. + Canada Tour

[New_Friend]

okay, they're not Algerian, but they are still super cool, and Tinariwen (hailing from the Southern Sahara) recently won the "Uncut Music Award" for 2009. They won for their 'Imidiwan:Companions' album.

They are -- finally! -- soon embarking on their U.S. and Canada tour, starting 2/15/2010 and bouncing around through 3/6/2010. More info on locations and dates is here:

Events - Tinariwen

[Al-khiyal]

Tuareg rebel rock, the Tinariwen way

February 18, 2010 — The awesome group of hypnotic rockers known as Tinariwen - from "Kel Tinariwen," or "desert boys" - dress in traditional costume for performances, have one of the most amazing political and social backstories of any band, and write songs that seek to convey the sorrows, longing, and occasional joys of living in exile. (They'll be performing Sunday 21 at the Palace of Fine Arts as part of the SF Jazz Festival.) That backstory story begins:

In 1963, an uprising of the nomadic Tuareg people began in the Adrar des Iforas desert region against the new independent government of Mali. During the revolt, a mason and trader by the name of Alhabib Ag Sidi was executed for aiding the rebels. The army then destroyed his herd of camels, cattle, and goats while his four-year old son Ibrahim watched. Ibrahim and his family travelled into exile in Algeria with his family and their one remaining cow.

It goes on to incorporate a number of rebellions, several diasoporas, Muammar Gaddafi, and founding member Ibrahim Ag Alhabib's love for American blues. But there's something even more compelling going on about Tinariwen than any gonzo global-folk narrative, however remarkable, suggests. These savvy Saharans, whose numbers encompass two generations of musicians (lIbrahim Ag Alhabib will make a rare appearance at the SF date), have a multi-tentacled Web presence that just won't quit, enthusiastically embrace the psychedelic indie-god status bestowed upon them by Pitchfork and the Uncut Music Awards, and aren't afraid to defy exotic expectations by dressing down a bit. Those are the kinds of things that can still shock Westerners when it comes to "world music" - we like our Putumayo heroes to stay in their Starbucks-ready niche - but Tinariwen plays it cool, walking a deliciously fine line between cutting-edge musicality and encapsulation of the past. (Perhaps the pitch-perfect duality of their image is what's prevented their releases from being subjected to dance remixes - a requirement for almost every other "world musician" to increase Western accessibility. Or maybe we're just finally getting over all that.)

Enough image analysis - what about the music? We're dealing with several bluesy electric guitars (no bass), some lovely and innovative percussion, a single woman's voice that can sometimes sound like several, and a throaty main vocal by Ibrahim Ag Alhabib that chant-croons and sometimes soars. Grooves are shuffled into slowly, and then amped up to dynamic effect, although noisy catharsis is saved only for key moments. It's a heady, jam-band-sounding combination that often enraptures, and even without the backstory trappings (live, the group sometimes greets audiences with "Welcome to the desert") still tells a story rarely heard, one of a new, unselfconscious fusion of global styles. For the group's fourth album, Imidiwan: Companions (World Village, 2009), Tinariwen took a break from all the world travelling and got back to its roots, recording in its hometown of Tessalit in Mali and attempting to channel the desert blues on a more intimate scale. The result is communal and virtuosic, and although a bit less visceral than past releases, it exudes a sense of relief - to be home, to have seen the world, perhaps to have reaped so much acclaim. Opener "Imidiwan Afrik Temdam" is a chuffing sway that Neil Young could easily cover, and shoulder-shaker "Tahult In" is an earworm that could serve as an authentic riposte to Sade's desert-chic "Soldier of Love." "Tenhert" is a handclapping dose of Tuareg rap. Tinariwen's vast-yet-intimate sound translates equally well to venues as huge as the Glastonbury Festival and as cozy(ish) as Yoshi's and the Palace of Fine Arts, where they've performed several times before. Whether you're there to expand your sonic horizons, take some technical notes from riff-pros, or just whirl about to great tunes, you'll probably be surprised at how many parts of you the music takes hold of and transports, no anthropology course required.

Tinariwen

Sunday February 21, 2010, 7 p.m.,

$25-$65

Palace of Fine Arts Theater

3301 Lyon, San Francisco.

Palace of Fine Arts Theatre

[Al-khiyal]

Hot breath of Saharan Rock blows in from Africa

February 19, 2010 -- Tinariwen is a more worldly band now than it was in 2001, when a performance at the Festival of the Desert in Mali introduced its resolute, hypnotic Saharan rock to an audience that carried its reputation beyond Africa. Since then Tinariwen has been on the world-music circuit, performing for audiences who don’t speak its main language, Tamashek. Wearing white robes and head scarves, the band members have made themselves emissaries. One of the band’s leaders, Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, has a catchphrase onstage: “Welcome to the desert.” When the band performed at the Highline Ballroom on Thursday night, the set included Tinariwen’s own kind of hip-hop song: two chords carrying rhymes in Tamashek and French. But that was just a brief bit of crossover. For most of its generous set, Tinariwen was as self-defined and intransigent as ever. The songs moved at their own steadfast pace, unhurried and adamant.

Since the late 1970’s, on and off, Tinariwen has been a voice for the Tuaregs, a nomadic minority who attempted a rebellion in 1990 against the government of Mali. The band’s founder, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, and the musicians he gathered as Tinariwen (which means “deserts”), wrote songs at first as propaganda. Now its lyrics, by the two lead singers who took turns as frontman — Mr. Alhabib and Mr. Alhousseyni — are solemn, filled with longings, memories of “freedom fighters,” homesickness and a determination to hold on to Tuareg identity. The group had heard rock as well as African and Middle Eastern music. Its instruments are acoustic and electric guitars and electric bass, with a lone hand drum for percussion. They applied Western instruments to the traditions of home: gnarled picking patterns from West African lutes, call-and-response vocals, three-against-two rhythms, a high descant sharing a melody, the modes and inflections of North African and Arabic music. The melodies are as straightforward as folk tunes, but they tug against the harmony in ways different from Western pop or rock, and the vocals stay unpolished — like the voices of footsore travelers, not slick performers.

Tinariwen’s songs extend minimal materials over time. Instrumental passages are more like incantations than solo and backup; guitar lines are bonded to the rhythm, with a twang glinting through now and then. The songs are comparable, inevitably, to a journey through a desert landscape that only appears unchanging to those who don’t perceive its details. A vocal quaver, a guitar trill, some new quick notes in a bass line, a flicker of extra drumming or a burst of ululation from the group’s female singer, Wonou Wallet Sidati, all became events. When some songs picked up speed, in triplet rhythms with handclaps resembling Moroccan gnawa music, they sounded ecstatic. A few songs revealed that Tinariwen is persistent, not provincial. There were hints of blues and reggae, and in one song, Mr. Alhousseyni placed a repeating guitar line in the foreground: a full-fledged rock guitar hook. But Tinariwen has clearly decided not to change too much for outsiders, and stubbornness only makes its music stronger.