Mojo, 12/2006

"We were young, angry"

Guitarist-singer Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni talks to David Hutcheon

photo : Alioune Ba

Has Japonais rejoined permanently?
"No. Japonais is one of the most famous poets in the Tuareg community and wrote some of our most famous songs, but after touring Europe in 2002 he decided he liked his freedom too much. He represents the true soul of Tinariwen, uncompromising and untameable, but that's also why he is not very good on tour."

Does recording in Mali pose any problems?
"Bogolan is a great studio with everything a band needs, you know, but Bamako can be too hot, noisy and crazy. I like it there, but other members of the band prefer being in the desert. In the end, we all prefer the desert but there are no facilities in Kidal. We've built a little rehearsal studio there, but it's very basic and we don't have any of the equipment necessary to record. There were plans to fly out all the equipment we needed, but it was too expensive."

Are the members of the band still nomads?
"We all have close family who are still living the nomadic life, but we're more musical nomads than pastoral ones. The real nomadic life is physically very, very hard. You have to live with very little, and when there's a drought it can be catastrophic. Most of us have homes in Kidal now, but we spend a lot of the year either touring, or visiting family in the Sahara. I suppose you could say we are still nomads."

Is it difficult getting the elders of the tribe to approve your music?
"No. All the old people approve of Tinariwen now, because they've seen how much our music has changed people's outlook for the better, and made them aware that the Tuareg people need to change and adapt in order to face the modern world. At the beginning it was a bit different because we were young and angry and we had a problem with some of the old values. But the band has existed since 1979, so attitudes have changed, both our own and those of our parents."

Magnificent dance

Enhanced hype or Tuareg folklore, Tinariwen have paid their rock'n'roll dues. Now they talk the talk too, says David Hutcheon.

Tinariwen, Aman Iman: Water Is Life

Shortly after these recordings were in the can, percussionist Said Ag Ayad returned to Tinariwen's home town of Kidal, by camel several days east of the Bogolan studios in Bamako, to get their tribal elders' approval. I don't know what the tribal elders are like round your way, but Kidal's clearly have Give ‘Em Enough Rope, Daydream Nation and Catch A Fire among their touchstones.

It must be difficult being the musical flagbearers of your people: on the frontline, people look to you for guidance but you're thinking about that European tour. While the band were in the studio, their disgruntled kin rose up once again to attack Malian government soldiers and raise the spectre of another prolonged bout of conflict. It's hard being a warrior-musician in a time of Peace.

So Aman Iman reveals a tougher Tinariwen than on their previous album, 2003's Amassakoul, production duties having returned to Robert Plant's guitarist Justin Adams, who also helmed their debut. The proof is in new versions of two previously released songs by Ibrahim, the band's main man: where Cler Achel (on last year's War Child compilation) and Matadjem Yinmexan (from their debut, The Radio Tisdas Sessions) were dense but acoustic, they have been transformed into snarling, spitting walls of electric buzz. The bass and beat are turned up to dub levels, fuzzy guitars fill every space. These are not so much re-recordings but brutalisations: if the originals capture the mood of an endless trek through the dunes, the new cuts are a tooled-up drugs run into Gotham. Old standards have safety pins stuck through their noses, new songs, are given added weight by barely perceptible production touches: clattering echo effects, wah wah pedals, augmenting the backing singers' clapping with metal castanets. This is a big sound, made to be heard above the din of city life and rock bands with no wisdom to impart.

To these ears, much of this is down to founder member Mohamed Ag Itlale (Japonais), a man as much desert myth as flesh and blood, whose return to the fold after six years adds levels of charisma that went missing between their first two albums. On Ahimina, he raves, rants and riffs off the backing vocalists, improvises poems about the backgrounds of band members and unleashes follow-this solos for five thrilling minutes. You can tell nobody else knows what they are supposed to be doing, but realise the man is cooking.

Riding into battle on camels, a Kalashnikov in one hand, a guitar in the other, the bullet wounds, the indigo veils, the desert struggle…