Pitchfork

Congotronics producer Vincent Kenis hit the Sahara earlier this year to capture a different kind of trance music performed by this desert blues nontet. The group, like fellow Tuareg rockers Tinariwen, formed in a refugee camp, but their music is more cyclical than that of their more well-known counterparts. The band's five women play percussion while the four men play electric and acoustic guitars. Everybody sings. "Ansari" is a captivating piece of music that trades verses lead by a solo male voice for huge choral moments, and the rhythmic dynamics are excellent, balancing stop-time passages with jumping beats driven by handclaps. There are two jaw-dropping guitar solos, and neither break the song's hypnotic rhythmic momentum. It's amazing how rooted to geography music can sound, and this music somehow is the Sahara, with towering dunes roiled by wind, and the arid, empty expansiveness unique to that part of the world.