Tinariwen Announce New Album Amadjar For September 2019 Release

The Grammy award winning group Tinariwen just announced the release of their newest album titled Amadjar. The album will be released in September 2019. Just recently, the Mali born group released their first single off the album titled “Taqkal Tarha.” The song features the sounds of Micah Nelson who is the son of Willie Nelson and Neil Young’s guitarist. Reportedly, the song has more of an “American” sound than most Tinariwen songs do. Listen to the first track here:

Many other artists contributed to Amadjar. Warren Elllis of the Bad Seeds plays violin on the album along with mandolin and charango from Micah Nelson, and guitars from Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O)))), Cass McCombs and Rodolphe Burger.

Tinariwen went about recording Amadjar in quite an interesting way. In a camper that was converted into a studio, the group traveled for almost two weeks to Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania. Each night during the journey, the group would set up and record. Eventually, Tinariwen set up camp in a desert near Nouakchott, where they were joined by other artists, and created live recordings of their works with no effects and without headphones.

With the new album, Tinariwen wanted to explore a number of themes and concepts including political, social, humanitarian, military, and environmental issues that plague their country of Mali. Tinariwen aims to give the struggle of the people of Mali a platform so people from across the globe can hear.

Here is the track list for Amadjar below:

1. Tenere Maloulat (feat. Warren Ellis)
2. Zawal (feat. Warren Ellis, Noura Mint Seymali, Jeiche Ould Chighaly)
3. Amalouna (feat. Noura Mint Seymali, Stephen O’Malley)
4. Taqkal Tarha (feat. Micah Nelson)
5. Anina
6. Madjam Mahilkamen
7. Takount (feat. Noura Mint Seymali)
8. Iklam Dglour (feat. Warren Ellis, Rodolphe Burger)
9. Kel Tinawen (feat. Cass McCombs)
10. Itous Ohar (feat. Cass McCombs)
11. Mhadjar Yassouf Idjan (feat. Warren Ellis)
12. Wartilla (feat. Warren Ellis, Stephen O’Malley)
13. Lalla

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat