Tinariwen is Tamashek-Berber for "deserts", and Aman Iman means "water is life". While the players of the collective that make up Tinariwen are Tuareg peoples from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali, their lives have been nomadic living in refugee and rebel camps. The group's founder, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, built himself a guitar from scraps when he was a child after seeing one in a cowboy movie and he learned to play by listening to among others, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley. You can hear all of this and more in their 2007 release Aman Iman, a powerful and richly rewarding record.

Aman Iman is an electric album in more ways than one, and this guitar-driven, sometimes over-driven music is at once foreign and familiar. If you like rock or blues or African music and especially if you like all three, you'll love Aman Iman.

We can thank Bleep.com for bringing us this CD-quality WAV or FLAC download of Aman Iman.