It’s only rock’n’roll?
Algerian Tuaregs’ third album adds to the sweep of an epic history lesson, reckons David Hutcheon.
Imarhan: making music which expands to fill the space.
Imarhan
★★★★
Aboogi
CITY SLANG. CD/DL/LP
ARE YOU READY for the country? The further we get from the initial surprise that the ‘desert blues’ exist, the more each album reveals about the lives of the protagonists. Rather than setting up the music as a scene in which competing yet complementing bands joust for a hearing – à la Britpop, or whatever – the Tuaregs’ records coalesce to form a single narrative, different parts of one story delivered in varying voices yet, ultimately, unified. A Mahabharata or Ramayana for the Tamashek people who once reigned unchallenged across northern Africa.