Imarhan [LP]

180g Black Vinyl Release

Tracklist

1. Tarha Tadagh
2. Tahabort
3. Ibas Ichikkou
4. Idarchan Net
5. Assossamagh
6. Imarhan
7. Addounia Azdjazzaqat
8. Id Islegh
9. Arodj N-Inizdjam
10. Alwak

The band’s debut album is intent on dismantling the ideas western listeners have about popularized Tuareg music. This new wave of Tuareg musicians sound very different to the desert distortion that accompanies groups like Mdou Moctar or Group Inerane. Instead, it finds a calm and passionate soul, provides sumptuous slow burners, and a complexity of composition that hasn’t been demonstrated by previous music exported from the Saharan people’s musical repertoire.

Even if the band has a direct DNA link to trail blazers Tinariwen their poetry and flow has a more integrally urban base than the ancestral tamashek poetry and traditional rhythms of their elders, Tinawiren. Instead they offer something much more fresh and intricate; there is a lot of sensitivity and space in these jams, a lot of room for your mind to ponder and drift.