Tamikrest

Kidal

Defiant stand from the last gang in town – in the last town before nothing.

Tinariwen’s kid brothers they may be, but Ousmane Ag Mossa’s band always seemed a far better rock’n’roll proposition, an impression boosted by their fourth studio album, which opens with a standard Tuareg boogie (Mawarniha Tartit) and closes with campfire acoustics (Adad Osan Itibat). However, the key tracks on these tales from Kidal, the city on the edge of the Sahara they call home and which became a focus of the fighting between Islamists, the government and the independenceseeking Tamasheq people, are the slow blues of Atwitas, a tune so alive with deep spacey guitars you can imagine David Gilmour wondering which Floyd album it was on, and the Segovia-flavoured Tanakra, which wouldn’t sound out of place on Forever Changes. Exactly the sort of angry rebel rock you want from a band with their backs to the walls and foes on all sides. David Hutcheon