Timbuktu Echoes

Not one but three different Touareg acts grace this release, which bypasses the CD format completely and is available only on vinyl or as a digital download. The album features three acts, the lead group being Imarhan Timbuktu, who provide five of the ten tracks. They are led by the veteran Mohamed Issa Ag Oumar, who helped to set up Tartit back in the 80s with his sister Disco, and is now resident in the M'Bera refugee camp in Mauritania. He travelled to upstate New York to make these recordings, although you'd never guess so, for they sound like acoustic campfire tapes, with his hypnotic voice accompanied only by two melancholic guitars and tinde (drum). The second act is Issa's younger brother Ousmane Ag Oumar, who offers two mournful solo guitar-and-voice pieces recorded in France, which have a similar vibe but are even more stripped-down. But perhaps the most intriguing of the three acts featured is Dintchéré, a young trio from Timbuktu, whose three tracks were recorded in Bamako. They include in their ranks Aliou Ousman Haidara, who on ‘Sida’ proves that there are few languages more strikingly dramatic than Tamasheq when it comes to rapping.