Tinariwen : Political urgency and soul-searching depth

Telegraph.co.uk - 28-08-08

jeudi 28 août 2008

The Tuareg band Tinariwen are a huge success in the West, but this has made them even more aware of their roots. They talk to Andrew Perry

Variously described as the world’s most exotic, exciting and dangerous rock band, Tinariwen have spent much of the past seven years away from their home in the desert of north-western Mali.

Their sound, a fusion of the traditional music of the Tuareg and electric blues, has resonated with audiences around the globe.

It is perhaps little wonder that their dusky, poetic chants about their people’s dispossession by the Malian government, and the bitter fight for freedom which their older members were involved in, have been enthusiastically embraced overseas. Such political urgency and soul-searching depth are simply not found in other contemporary music.

As the Western media have bestowed upon them increasingly generous splashes of hype, so Tinariwen have spent more time in our midst. In 2007, their eight-piece touring ensemble played 136 concerts abroad. They have passed much of this summer criss-crossing Europe on the festival circuit.

Much of the talk about Tinariwen focuses on how they might become the biggest non-Anglo-American band since Bob Marley and the Wailers, as long as the public can overcome the fact that they sing in Tamashek. There is, of course, another big "if" : whether Tinariwen are prepared to play the game to sell millions of albums.

advertisement On their arrival at the Larmer Tree Festival, near Shaftesbury, Dorset, this didn’t seem likely. A public Q ?& ?A session was cancelled, and when I met them backstage, the mood was not the promised one of jovial cups of tea and cigarettes. After some faltering introductions in French there was a tense silence. Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, their guiding light, paced in and out of the room in black jeans and Cuban heels.

Once on stage in his fine indigo robe, he was utterly magnetic, but no less elusive. He gently caressed blues signatures from his electric guitar, and sang with an aching, alien beauty. After two songs he vanished, leaving other male members to sing, and the two women to dance, smile and emit a guttural call not dissimilar to a native American warcry.

The music was fabulous, mesmerising, but Bob Marley didn’t crack America by hiding in his dressing-room for half the show.

No one, however, could accuse Ibrahim of not paying his dues. When he was four, his father was shot by government soldiers. Ibrahim became nomadic, fleeing to Libya, where Colonel Gaddafi was training Malian refugees to use Kalashnikovs, and guitars. There he heard Western rock for the first time. His ensuing band, whose name means "The Empty Spaces", articulated the feelings of anger and displacement among those exiled among the Tuareg. Their songs were first circulated on cassettes, until Western record companies became involved around 2000.

When I encounter Tinariwen for a second time, they’re killing time between flights at Gatwick. The mood is affable, if not exactly chatty. After a lengthy cigarette break, Eyadou Ag Leche, the band’s bassist, presents himself for an interview. As one of the band’s younger members, Eyadou is perhaps the leading edge of Tinariwen’s integration into Western culture. He joined when his instrument, the bass guitar, was added to make their sound more rounded for global consumption. "When I’m playing," he tells me, "I’m very conscious of the power that I feel in the music, which comes from everything that it has been, its ancestral line. The phase that we’re in is one where the music is communicating with the world."

The lives of the members have changed massively. Back in Mali, apparently, Ibrahim romps around in a 4x4, with Jimi Hendrix or Free blasting from its stereo. The situation between the Malian authorities and the Tuareg is comparatively peaceful, after a brief flare-up earlier this year.

Eyadou pragmatically concedes that they tour not just to spread the word, but also to make money, which is distributed among their extended families back home.

"The only weakness the Tuareg have is homesickness," he says. "You could put us in the most luxurious penthouse imaginable, in Malibu, or Chelsea, but we’ll still want to get back to the desert as quickly as possible. There’s nothing that compares - the simplicity, the peace, the freedom. So, my vision of the next record is something soft, sweet, and quiet, which expresses the real spirit of the desert, and why we’re homesick for it."

Eyadou was involved in mixing Aman Iman, their much-lauded album from last year, and, as thoughts turn towards a follow-up, his colleagues are looking to him to develop their sound.

Justin Adams, the Englishman who produced Aman Iman, explains : "What we’re trying to encourage them towards is a kind of Tamashek Pet Sounds, whereby they’re thinking for themselves about how they can use the recording studio and create new atmospheres there."

And so, for all problems inherent in their culture clash, Tinariwen’s story surely has plenty more exciting chapters to come.

Tinariwen play at the Cheese & Grain, Frome, tonight. Their ’Live In London’ DVD is released on Sept 8 by Independiente.