Amatssou

Idioma disponível: inglês

Tinariwen's tracks often begin with a meandering and suggestive guitar solo, in the style of John Lee Hooker. Then comes the husky and rugged voice of lead singer, Ibrahim ag Alhabib. The song then quickly takes shape, picking up the pace and gaining momentum with hand claps, pulsating drums, backing vocals and more guitars pumping up the power. This Tuareg electric music, invented by Tinariwen more than twenty years ago, is particularly ritualistic, with its own customs and conventions. 

On this Tinariwen album, the two come together as one. The Tuareg group had intended to record it in Nashville at Jack White's studios, together with local musicians, but due to the pandemic they had to take refuge near Djanet, in the Algerian Sahara Desert. The American contributors then added their remote input. On this recording, produced by Daniel Lanois, we are treated to the steel-guitar, piano, banjo, and American fiddle. Nothing improper; simply an echo of rural music and the traditional Tamasheq imzad, a violin-esque instrument presented by the group on the album. Amatssou does not sound like a Saharan country album. It's 80% classic Tinariwen, altered only by a few pensive and melancholic country touches brought in by Lanois' sensibility. The correspondence is fantasised, imagined.

It's often been thought that this hypnotic music could have originated in Oklahoma during the great drought, when cracked earth and scarcity drove out its heavy hearted residents, despite the impending homesickness and desire to return home. For Tinariwen, it comes at the end of the recording with the tindé track, the traditional music of Tuareg women. It represents an immense moment of mystical music. © Stéphane Deschamps/Qobuz