Week 3: Tinariwen - Emmaar (2014)

I enjoy reading Henry Rollins' books chronicling his adventures exploring other countries and people and his latest book, Grim Detail, has a lot of new countries and experiences. The first journey in this book is to the country of Mali in Africa. I admit I had to look at a map to understand its place in relation to the countries I am familiar with. Henry traveled to Mali to go to a music festival called the Festival Au Desert held in the Sahara Desert to see a band called Tinariwen, which I had never heard of, who are from the desert in Mali.

I was able to hit the web and find some videos of Tinariwen and became mesmerized by their style of music commonly referred to as desert blues. I did some research on the group and chose to pick up their latest album on vinyl, Emmaar. Curiously, side four contains three songs not on the accompanying CD included with the vinyl. Amazon's automatic digital download includes these vinyl only tracks.

Tinariwen blend electric guitars, electric bass, hand percussion, claps, and native vocals to make a truly unique sound. I find the mixture very relaxing. The grooves and vocals are soothing to me and I have really enjoyed taking this songs with me on my neighborhood walks and plugging them in when I feel stressed.

Tinariwen have six albums and all of them were recorded in the Sahara Desert except Emmaar. Due to government changes in Mali regarding music, Tinariwen have relocated to the Unites States and Emmaar was recorded in the deserts of Joshua Tree.

Tinariwen have been a breath of fresh air to my listening repertoire and I plan to explore some more of their albums and the other African desert blues artists.

The album is great from beginning to end, but I would recommend "Chaghaybou" and "Emajer" as starting points to see if you dig this style of music. Always try to expand your listening, because there are some great songs out there in every genre in every country around the globe. Try not to limit yourself. Try something new.

Keep listening and thank you for reading this.