Video: Tinariwen, “Lulla”
- story Matthew Schnipper
Dirty Glove Bastard needs to write about Tinariwen. We know they are a “rock band” or “world music” or whatever and not “rap,” but this shit is gully as fuck. Right now Young Jeezy is getting his kid ready for school, playing this video and being like THAT’S RIIIGHT. These dudes recorded this shit in the desert in Mali, electric guitars, brown rocks and deep night drone. “Lulla” is from their new album, Imidiwan (which roughly translates to “companionship”), and it bumps. If today works out like it should, we will be in Paris playing this shit out of a convertible eating fresh papaya and spitting the seeds into the wind.
Video: Tinariwen Live At Other Music
- story THE FADER
Last November, we saw Tinarwien at Other Music and now you can, too, thanks to OM’s super fancy video set up/get down. See if you can find us (we’re the good looking ones.)
Live: Tinariwen at Other Music
- story THE FADER
Everyone in Tinariwen wears pastel robes, except one guitar player who wears brown. You would think, in a group of five jovial men, the one guy not wearing clothes that look inked by fingerpaint would be the band’s earthy timekeeper, the unembellished regular thumper. But this dude shreds. We got to their in store performance at Other Music early last night and inched close, watched the shred progress from near. His style was calm, unfettered the way Jim White plays drums, as though it was a lucky accident that he hit the notes he hit and somehow, with some special music magic, it sounded aligned and perfect. He didn’t use a pick, half strummed/half finger tapped. It was gentle, though; there was nothing aggressive about him, or the rest of the music. Tinariwen exists anomalous because they seem to fill so many Venn diagrams at once, the space between solos and drone; world music, jam band and monk chant; the avant garde and the perfectly inconspicuous. Their peculiar brand of electric blues is so wonderfully nebulous because of its simplicity; the choral aspect, five men sing-wailing over the simple patterns of one hand drum and basic bass. And last night in a tiny hot room that rugged beat repetition was guiding music for an early winter’s inevitable life lull. We feel better now; thank you Mali.
