Nomad band tinariwen release their 10th studio album ‘hoggar’
10 albums and over 45 years into their storied career, Tuareg musical pioneers and Grammy-winners Tinariwen are returning to their roots.
Press photo tinariwen
Fierce advocates for their people’s nomadic culture that exists in the desert borderlands between Mali and Algeria, Tinariwen’s bluesy, guitar-driven music has found global acclaim over the past two decades for its lively blend of Tamasheq-language politicism, syncopated rhythms and soaring melody. On Hoggar, their tenth album, they now stake their claim as elders of this Tuareg musical tradition, going back to their early years of songwriting with acoustic guitars and communal singing around the desert campfire, while also passing the torch onto a younger generation of featured musicians who can continue to keep the flame of rebellion and defiance alive.
Typically choosing to record their albums among the arid landscape of the Central Saharan desert and tuning into the sounds of nature as they find their melodies, the band has in recent years been forced to find new locations for their creativity due to the political unrest in Mali. With founding members of the band now relocated to Algeria they found a new home to record Hoggar in a studio set up by younger Tuareg band Imarhan in the southern city of Tamanrasset. “It’s the city with the biggest Tuareg population in Algeria and it’s also where the band started making music back in 1979 when they were refugees,” longtime collaborator and producer Patrick Votan says. “Since the Imarhan studio was already there, it became the perfect setting to bring all the generations of Tuareg musicians together and to begin exploring once again the raw-edged sound they first became known for.”
While previous records like 2023’s Amatssou saw the group collaborate with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson producer Daniel Lanois, on Hoggar the band looked closer to home. Gathering with the local Tuareg musical community every day for a month, founding members Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni and Touhami Ag Alhassane began penning songs of political unrest alongside younger artists like Imarhan’s Iyad Moussa Ben Abderrahmane, Hicham Bouhasse and Haiballah Akhamouk. The group also linked up with Sanou Ag Hamed, from the Tuareg band Terakaft, as well as collaborating with Tinariwen co-founder Liya ag Ablil, AKA Diarra, for the first time in 25 years. What emerged was a sense of reunion as well as an evolution of the Tinariwen sound.
Ultimately, with Hoggar Tinariwen stand proud as cultural signifiers, much like the Tuareg mountainscape that erupts from the Central Saharan desert and that gives the record its title. A defiant marker of presence visible for miles, the Hoggar mountains are a symbol of a homeland for displaced people, while Tinariwen’s music continues to make space for future generations of their song.
