Tinariwen: Hoggar – Album Review

The haunting strains of Tinariwen’s desert blues have made them a safe bet for diehard world music listeners. But Hoggar, their back-to-the-roots 10^th album, surprises with renewed warmth, intimacy and a fierce political edge. Robert Plummer moves to the Sahel groove.

Night comes suddenly in the north African desert. All at once, the blistering heat of the day dissipates like a mirage, to be replaced by freezing cold. It’s when darkness falls that Tinariwen’s music comes into its own: play it with the lights out on a chilly evening if you truly want to appreciate its eerie power.

Calling Tinariwen a band is perhaps misleading – they’re more a freewheeling collective of musicians, as befits the migratory existence of their people. Their roots are in traditional Tuareg culture, but their international popularity is a 21^st Century phenomenon. Since their first worldwide release in 2001, their sparse yet hypnotic drone tones have captured the attention of an ever-widening circle of fans.

In the past, they have been known to include the odd indie guest star and English-language vocal, in the interest of broadening their sound and their appeal. That process culminated in their last album, 2023’s Daniel Lanois-produced Amatssou, which incorporated banjo and pedal steel. It was a bit country & Western Sahara in places, unlike any of their previous releases.

Three years later, Tinariwen return with few of those frills intact. There’s no big-name producer, no transatlantic to-ing and fro-ing. Instead, the recording sessions in southern Algeria saw them communing with a younger generation of local musicians who have followed in their wake – and using the experience to get back to basics.

Geopolitically, much has changed in Tinariwen’s home region during their musical absence. After French troops were forced to leave Mali in 2021, Russian mercenaries filled the military vacuum, waging a counter-insurgency operation against Islamist militants. The unrest has left its mark on the collective’s music, making them even more passionate in defence of their precarious way of life.

Opening track Amidinim Ehaf Solan begins with all Tinariwen’s sonic trademarks: long floating guitar notes, call-and-response vocals in the Tamasheq language, handclaps and darbuka drums marking time. But as the translated text indicates, the song speaks of national rebirth in a harsh era. “We still have a country, albeit thirsty and in pain, but it will turn green again and grow new branches,” runs the lyric.

Imidiwan Takyadam, a gospel-flavoured slice of nomad soul, is the only track to feature a Western musician. José González, a Swedish folk singer of Argentine descent, contributes a Spanish-language vocal. While the main Tamasheq lyric invokes refugees “scattered across so many distant lands”, González sings of people “sharing the same sky” and living under the same sun.

Ominous, born-under-a-bad-sign vibes herald the start of Erghad Afewo, a song of strife between rival Tuareg tribes. “The desert is ablaze/Only the enemy is there now,” sings veteran vocalist Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, while the tense guitar interplay creates an atmosphere you could cut with a scimitar. That pressure eases on Tad Adounya, a slow-burning ballad with a message of kindness: “Show compassion to the poor man who lives in need.”

The herky-jerky handclap rhythm of Asstaghfero Allah (“People of Muhammad, fear God”) raises the tempo. Then comes the Tuareg rockabilly of Sagherat Assani, in which Sudanese siren Sulafa Elyas sings of women with “skin smooth as a softened prayer mat”. But the Sahara’s lone and level sands are never far from Tinariwen’s thoughts: in both words and music, the mournful N’ak Tenere Iyat evokes its “bare and lonely solitude”.

The funk-tinged Amidinin Wadar Nohar is another tale of hard times among the sand flats. “Once we lived out in the lonely desert, and now everything we try and do is difficult,” goes the song. Still, getting about in the wilderness is easier for some than for others, as Khay Erilan makes plain: “Happy is he who owns the latest model of Toyota Landcruiser.”

Whimsical metaphysics predominate in the cautionary Dounia Tau Ray, which informs us that life is a “big bowl” and warns not to drink too deeply from it. However, Tinariwen have saved the deepest cut for last: Aba Malik names and shames the region’s Wagner mercenaries, since rebranded as the more explicitly Kremlin-controlled Africa Corps. “Curse you Wagner, curse your mother,” rages vocalist Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni over an echoing, funereal beat that sounds like a requiem for civilisation.

No-one can accuse Tinariwen of not walking it like they talk it: you could take them out of the desert, but you could never take the desert out of them. In an often fickle and fad-obsessed music industry, that integrity is something to treasure. And judging by the vigour and vitality of this latest album, their rugged tales of the Sahara will continue to inspire for many years to come.

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You can find Tinariwen online at https://www.tinariwen.com/. They are also on Facebook here, Instagram here and Bandcamp here.

All words by Robert Plummer. More writing by Robert can be found at his author’s archive. He is also on X as @robertp926.