Emmaar

Those who saw Tinariwen at the Songlines Music Awards 2012 Winners’ Concert at the Barbican at the end of 2012 witnessed a subdued, austere performance. That was no surprise, given that their homeland in northern Mali was in the grip of Islamist extremists who had banned all forms of music.

Their new album exudes the same solemnity, recorded in the Californian desert, the band in exile due to continued ‘political instability in their country, as the PR blurb with the CD starkly reminds us. In the same week the album arrived came the news that two French journalists had been kidnapped and executed in the band’s hometown of Kidal. In the face of this ongoing tragedy, Emmaar opens mournfully with the slow desert blues of ‘Toumast Tincha’, with lyrics such as ‘the ideals of the people have been sold cheap,’ and ‘peace imposed by force is bound to fail.’ The mood gets no lighter and although the pulse quickens briefly on the urgent-sounding ‘Chaghaybou,’ it’s soon back to the sombre laments. The snaking guitar solos are muted and the rhythms stern; at times the austerity seems almost suffocating. The darkest, densest and most difficult album of Tinariwen’s career.