Tin Hinane

There’s a sharp comment in the liner notes of this debut album to the effect that the band Kel Asouf ‘takes the Touareg tradition and tries to develop it without disfiguring its roots’. Whether this is intended as a sideswipe at some of their fellow bands is unclear, but it’s undeniably refreshing to hear a Touareg album that takes a substantially different approach from the guitar-band template.

Kel Assouf are a Brussels-based band led by Touareg exile Aboubacar ‘Anana’ Harouna and they’re aided by the presence of non-Touareg musicians from as far apart as Ghana and Algeria. The arrangements are tighter and the influences more diverse than we’re accustomed to hearing from most of the desert blues bands. The opener, ‘Alkas’, is a gentle, folkish piece dominated by female flautist Esinam Dogbatse, while the title-track features the gentle kora of Bao Sissoko. The bucolic ‘Talit’ sounds like something a nomadic herdsman might sing to the moon while guarding his cattle. ‘Afrik’ has an Afro-reggae lilt, a sound developed further on the full-on desert dub of ‘Amidinine’, while ‘Tamasheq’ is late-night sand-dune jazz.