I have completely fallen in love with this album ...

[mysteriousaliways]

Bought a copy of Tinariwen's 'Aman Iman: Water is Life' off Amazon and it arrived a couple of days ago. I'd heard Tinariwen were good but hadn't heard any of their stuff before.

It's fabulous.

They're Tuareg nomads with electric guitars (the real deal: tents, camels, desert, robes, one of them had never seen an electric light till the age of 16, the whole thing), and some of the tracks sound like the Blues would if it had been born in a tent in the desert. The faster-paced tracks have a wonderful groove to them, almost hypnotic.

The third track is one of my favourites - have a listen to a bit of it:
Matadjem Yinmixan
(Edit: Oops, that link just brings up the playlist for the whole album. Ah well, just double-lick on the third song, ok? :) )

It's truly wonderful stuff. If you want to hear bits of the rest of the album, you can listen here:
Listen To Aman Iman: Water Is Life

alternative link: http://tinariwen.calabashmusic.com/#

Comments

[inklingfair.livejournal.com]

Do you have any music recs for me? In the I-don't-know-what-they-call-it-percussion field. :) I'm looking for something for Lolo's birthday.

[mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com]

The biggest name in middle-eastern percussion that I'm familiar with is Hossam Ramzy (sometimes spelled 'Ramsy'). He has loads of CDs.

Tim Garside is great too, but he sells his CDs directly (no record label or distributor), so I'm not sure how you could get hold of them outside the UK. I just have an email address for him, no website.

[inklingfair.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll try to look up Ramzy, then.