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Tinariwen
© Amélie Chassary

Desert rebels return


Desert rebels return

Tinariwen returned to the heart of the Malian desert to record their fourth album Imidiwan. On the eve of their UK tour, Mondomix meets founders Ibrahim Ag Alhabib and Hassan Ag Touhami.

 

“I never thought that our music would one day go beyond the camps” Ibrahim Ag Alhabib told Mondomix in 2006. Tinariwen’s music has gone way beyond the Malian desert where it all started. Since 2001, the group has played more than 700 concerts all over the world, from Europe to Japan, via the US and Australia. Stretched out on a couch in a Paris apartment, Ibrahim inhales deeply on a cigarette and ponders the universal nature of their success. On his right, Hassan Ag Touhami pours the tea, from the teapot to the cups and from the cups back into the teapot. “I can’t explain it,” Ibrahim finally says, “but perhaps people like our music because it comes from a particular context, the desert, nostalgia.” A reserved and private man, he is not one to vent his opinions about the countries they have travelled through. “I don’t make any judgements, each place is different, many of them are lovely. There’s a lot more water and greenery than back at home. The concerts allow us to spread our message and to discover other cultures. But that doesn’t affect our music.”

 

Imidiwan demonstrates that the foundations of Tinariwen’s music remain in essence the same. Enigmatic guitars, hypnotic rhythms, call and response vocals and that extraordinarily evocative sense of space. These different elements are once again in full effect on Imidiwan, which translates as ‘comrades’ or ‘companions’. It was recorded in Tessalit, a village at the heart of the desert in northern Mali, with French sound engineer Jean-Paul Romann. “Hassan and I have been living in Tessalit for two years now,” explains Ibrahim, “we chose to record on home ground so that we’d have the calm of the desert, we feel really good there. Some tracks were recorded in an old house and others out in the desert.” One of the tracks recorded in the open air brings a dreamy close to the album. “It just happened. I held the guitar and just touched it lightly, with the wind blowing through the strings”. The result is gripping. As usual, Ibrahim wrote the bulk of the songs, six out of thirteen here. Some are new, others drawn from their deep repertoire. Two tracks date from the days of the Touareg rebellion against the Malian authorities, which Ibrahim, Hassan and other band members took part in during the 1990s. “Imidiwan Afrik Tendam is a song to my comrades in the rebellion, but also to other African peoples in the same situation,” explains Ibrahim, “I wrote it during a journey from Libya to Algeria, around 1988 or 89. It’s about a question I’m asking them, about life, the future – what do you think about the people born under oppression? The answer is in the question. Tenalle Chegret was written in 1991, on the eve of the National Pact (the peace process which put a provisional end to the Touareg insurrection). Splits within the insurgency began to appear and by singing “the revolution is a long thread which is easier to twist than to straighten” I wanted to remind them that this was a fragile process, and that we shouldn’t sell out. Or forget the martyrs of the struggle. In the end, some of them did sell themselves out.”

 


Tinariwen - Imidiwan: Companions DVD trailer

 

Ibrahim dismisses the significance of recording these songs now, saying “other songs came along in the meantime”, but they are a timely reminder of the political dimension of the group, which is inseparable from their music. Tinariwen, remember, was founded in the mid 1980s to transmit the call to insurrection in the Libyan camps, home to a generation of young Touaregs who had fled the Malian authorities. Notwithstanding some recent tensions, the military situation is more peaceful today, but Ibrahim’s concern about the future for Touareg people is as strong as ever. “The future worries me to a certain extent because if we are not careful Touareg culture is in danger of disappearing. The traditions are threatened by the trend to live in villages, where people change their culture, their way of life, the way they dress. A lot has changed since I was a child. Some of the traditional skills and crafts have been lost.” What has happened in Niger is a stark example; the mining of the uranium present in the sub-soil of the Sahara is another threat for Touareg populations. “Yes I’m afraid that the same thing will happen in Mali,” notes Ibrahim, “the only way to protect ourselves is to make sure the uranium is not exploited. Tinariwen’s role is to make people aware of these problems, which affects all the people living in the desert, although some of them just think about how valuable uranium is, and don’t see any of the downsides.”

 

Along with Ibrahim’s compositions, the album features tracks written by Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, Mohammed ‘Japonais’ Ag Itlale (a founder member who no longer tours with the group), guitarist Abdallah ‘Intidao’ Ag Lamida who makes his debut as a songwriter, and Hassan Ag Touhami, who explains his two songs. “Tahult In is an adaptation of an ancient poem by Mohammed Assori Ahmed. Ere Tasfata Adounia calls for tolerance, a worldwide unified sincerity. The song describes the world and life as very ephemeral things: how it’s useless to put material gain before human beings.” Is this a message aimed primarily at the West? “It applies to everyone,” replies Hassan laughing. When it comes to transcending frontiers, Tinariwen are in their element.

 

 

Tinariwen : Imidiwan : Companions

Tinariwen UK tour 16-31 October 2009 www.tinariwen.com
Imidiwan: Companions CD/DVD is out now on Independiente
Read the review





Bertrand Bouard


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