Tinariwen has been that mesmerising Assouf band encompassing Ibrahim ag Alhabib for over forty years. After more than 6 years, the pioneers of Tuareg blues finally return to AB again, where the band will present its new, very impressive, album ‘Amatssou’ (Wedge).

The album was originally supposed to be recorded at Jack White’s studio in Nashville. Grammy Award winner Daniel Lanois was to produce it and various local country musicians were to play on it...would have, had Corona not suddenly turned up and the entire project fell through.

The alternative was no less challenging. Recording took place in Djanet, an oasis in the desert of Southern Algeria, located in the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, a vast sandstone plateau that is listed by UNESCO as World Heritage and is famous for its 10,000 year old pre-historic cave art.

An improvised studio was built using borrowed material from Imarhans’ studio and the wonders of technology allowed Lanois & country musicians Fats Kaplin and Wes Corb to record their contributions from afar. The result is an extremely impressive album which sings about the harsh realitiy of the Tamashek people from Northern Mali: the military junta, the presence of the Wagner Group, the departure of the French from the region and the increasing power of the Salafists. The collaborations with Lanois & C° brightly highlight the musical kinship between Tinariwen’s Sub-Saharan desert blues and authentic American roots music.