Amassakoul

Amassakoul

South Sahara's best-known band marks 25 years of existence with an outstanding second album, "Amassakoul" or "The Traveller". It reveals a full gamut of unexpected musical styles, from Touareg rap ("Arouane") to haunting ambiance ("Assoul"). Drenched in the pain of war and exile that ended in 1997, Tinariwan crosses linguistic and cultural barriers thanks to a traditional rock format of guitars, drums and bass. But the seven-person group does not neglect its seven centuries of musical heritage though, with infectious handclaps, vocal choruses and moving lyrics on nomadic life. The links to American blues are clear from the first notes of the title track and it is no surprise that that great bluesman of the Sahara, Ali Farka Toure, is one of the staunchest defenders of Timbuktu's three-year-old Festival of the Desert (founded by Tinariwen and Lo'jo).

In "Amassakoul", Alhabib has used songs he composed in the thick of the war of attrition between Malian troops and Touareg rebels. The rhythms reflect the tranquility of an ambling dromedary on the Saharan dunes, but overlying them there is a heavy dose of melancholy, longing and the pain of exile. At the same time, his music served a moral-boosting purpose during the actual conflict. Alhabib wrote the danceable "Chet Boghassa" ("Women of Boghassa") hours after a 1990 raid on a military post in which he participated: "The raid failed and many people died - maybe 30 or 40 - so I wanted to reassure the women of the village that we would be back," (quoted in Alex Duval-Smith's excellent article "The rhythms of the sand", The Independent, March 5 2004).

Daniel Brown

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