On their enthralling new album entitled Tassili, the renowned band TINARIWEN have set down their electric guitars and returned to the very essence of their art. Recorded in a protected region of the South-Eastern Algerian desert, the group returned to the roots of their music, with only acoustic guitars and unamplified percussion. During recording, the band was joined by Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone of the band TV On The Radio. Later on, guitarist Nels Cline (Wilco) and the horns of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band contributed to create an album that reaches deep into the essence of TINARIWEN’s sound while simultaneously opening itself to the surrounding world.
“The music of Tinariwen is at once exotic and familiar– the scales and arrangements are as strange to our ears as the language they sing in, but there’s a force operating on a more subliminal level that unites it to something rattling around inside anyone who was brought up on blues or rock & roll. It’s music of longing and rebellion, weary wisdom and restless energy, and it sounds so, so good.” – Pitchfork on an older record of Tinariwen
„The new record also sounds so, so good. There are some of those softly killing songs you´ve never heared of them before. They don´t follow their formula, they follow very, very special routes. There are even some slowly burning brass arrangements that never overpower the songs. I never thought they would ever make such a tranquil record. It´s touching me on a very deep level, and I´m not dreaming of deserts. This is not for a fucking Ibiza beach party.“ – manafonistas.de
listen to one song of the new album: https://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/jul/06/tinariwen-tenere-taqqim-tossam