Keeping Tuareg alive

Tamikrest: Toumastin (Glitterhouse Records)

One of the highlights of 2010’s world music releases was the debut album Adagh by Tuareg group Tamikrest. Hailing from Mali, Niger and Algeria, this seven-piece band of young Tuaregs showed that they were intent on picking up the legacy of the Tuareg’s most famous export Tinariwen and running with it.

Not suprising then that in 2011 we get the band’s second album titled Toumastin and it’s even better than their debut. The predominant style is Tuareg blues, but as on their first album the influences of reggae and rock can be clearly heard, but everything on their second album sounds tighter and more focused. Highlights include the wah-wah pedal-driven groove of Fassous Tarahnet, the subtle reggae influence of Nak Amadjar Nidounia and the rocking blues snarler Aratan N Tinariwen.

With Tinariwen set to release a new album featuring members of TV on the Radio in August this year, it looks like we may have a showdown between the veterans of the scene and the young upstarts. “As far as I am concerned, it’s Tinariwen that created the path,” says the band’s 27-year-old leader Ousmane Ag Moosa. “But the way I see it, if younger bands don’t come through then Tuareg music will eventually die.” With albums as great as this one, there is no chance of that happening.