Ichichila
Since its release in 2000,Ichichilahas quietly assumed the status of a "desert blues" classic. Tartit are a group of musicians from the Timbuktu area of Mali, which explains the similarity of this music to that of their better known neighborAli Farka Toure. He draws heavily on Songhai and Tuareg traditions, while Tartit are Tuareg tribes people whose nomadic lifestyle seems to have prepared them well the for the international tours they now find themselves undertaking. Onstage they are a picture of grace and dignity with the men’s faces veiled and the women's proudly exposed--a unique reversal of the usual dress codes found in many Islamic cultures. Their songs are based on timeless hypnotic grooves created with only the sparsest arrangements. Unlike that other well known Tuareg group Tinariwen, the music of Tartit is largely "unplugged! ". They sometimes use a single electric guitar, but more often their cyclical melodic motifs come from the scrabbling notes of the Tuareg lute (tehardent) or fiddle (imzad). Rhythm is supplied by the softly booming tindé drum and insistent hand claps, over which call and response vocals, (usually led by the women) ululations and sudden screams pile on the atmosphere. This is music to sway rather than dance to; they play most of it sitting down in a semi-circle and you might just want to lie down and chill for much of it. Eminently recommendable. --Jon Lusk