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August 29, 2011: Tinariwen issues new album in Tamasheq – language of the Tuareg.

Tinariwen (meaning the deserts, plural for tenere) has just issued their 5th album, Tassili, named after the southern region of Algeria where it was recorded. The tracks were put together between November and December 2010 around the fire of a Mauritanian tent, in the middle of the desert.
In substance one might deem the assouf (loneliness, nostalgia in Tamasheq) music of this new album to be « Tuareg blues », an encounter between blues, rock, and traditional Tuareg music. But in content this is more of an acoustic album, with the band members joined by a few American musicians such as Kyp Malone (TV On The Radio), Nels Cline (Wilco) and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.
Tinariwen was put together in the 80s, first informally, in an area located between the oasis of Tessalit in Mali, and Tamanrasset in Algeria. As activists of the Tuareg cause, they spent a few years in a training camp in Libya before the Tuareg rebellion outburst at the end of the decade. The 1994 peace agreements did not hold back their involvement and they became the spokespeople of a population who sees its culture changing, its resources declining, and its youth emigrating.
Tinariwen is now a band known worldwide, performing on the most prestigious stages across the planet, the Eurockéennes in France, Glastonbury in England, and Coachella in USA.
Tinariwen live:
September 3, 2011: Moseley Folk, Birmingham, UK
September 4, 2011: End Of The Road Festival, Larmer Tree Gardens, UK
September 6, 2011: Fabrik Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
September 7, 2011: WUK, Vienna, Austria
September 9, 2011: USF Verftet, Bergen, Norway
September 10, 2011: COSMOPOLITE, Oslo, Norway
September 21, 2011: 104, Paris, France
September 23-24, 2011: Babylon, Istanbul, Turkey
September 26, 2011: Tvornica, Zagreb, Croatia
September 30, 2011: O oh La La!, LA, USA
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