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When I call Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni<\/span> to discuss Tinariwen<\/span><\/a>\u2019s new album Hoggar<\/span>, he is getting ready to leave the house. While he wraps a turban around his head, a little boy picks up the camera, introduces himself, and, repeating after Alhousseyni, says, \u201cI am a child of the desert.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The boy entertains me for a while, then Alhousseyni takes the phone back, walks through a spacious room, into a yard, and then to a car. He places the phone behind the steering wheel and starts to drive. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHoggar<\/span> was a beautiful experience for me. It\u2019s the first time we recorded an album in Tamanrasset,\u201d he says. A cultural, economic, and administrative hub, the oasis city in southern Algeria is often referred to as Algeria\u2019s Tuareg capital. Tinariwen\u2019s founding members, as well as the second and third generations of musicians who later joined the band, first started playing music there in 1979.<\/p>\n Hoggar<\/span> was recorded at Aboogie, the studio of Iyad Moussa Ben Abderahmane<\/span>, commonly known as Sadam<\/span>. He is the lead singer of the Tuareg band Imarhan<\/span><\/a> and a cousin of Tinariwen\u2019s Eyadou Ag Leche<\/span>, and he made it possible for Tinariwen to record at home with professional gear for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n This tenth studio album is a musical and visual journey through eleven tracks, including some old Tinariwen songs that have never been recorded before. Their message of resistance still rings as true today as it did several decades ago, blending their signature desert blues assouf with local rhythms, Sudanese music, and the call-and-response vocals of their community members. <\/p>\n \n
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