Tuareg nomads and cowboy drifters. Camel trains and mustang horses. The timeless horizon of the endless Sahara and the wild frontier of the Old West - and when the day is done, guitars around the campfire, singing songs of loss and longing and ‘home on the range’. Several thousand miles of ocean may divide the desert blues of Tinariwen and the authentic country music of rural America but the links are as palpable as they are romantic. Tinariwen is a Tuareg music band formed in 1979 on the borders of Mali and Algeria. Pioneers of the assouf style (“nostalgia” in tamashek), they address Tuareg people’s preoccupations in songs that mix traditional West African and Arab music with blues, folk and other influences.
