Album: Terakaft, Kel Tamasheq (World Village)

Featuring the usual cyclical guitar swirls, call and response vocal chants
and urgent handclap rhythms, Kel Tamasheq ("The People Who Speak Tamashek" – ie,
the Touareg) is as infectiously engaging as you'd expect from an offshoot of the
Tinariwen taproot.

But while the music retains familiar desert-blues stylings, the lyrics reflect the traumatic disruption in the rapidly-changing world of the Touareg, with criticism of the Ansar Dine fundamentalist invaders in "Imad Halan", and several reflections on the turmoil of war, most poetically in "Taddaza".

Download: Tirera; Awa Adounia; Aïma Ymaïma; Taddaza