Desert Crossroads : Etran Finatawa : Review : Rolling Stone

Lately the modern Sahara sounds like the Mississippi Delta of the Twenties: a font of world-class musicians exorcising serious blues. Niger's Etran Finatawa strip down the hypnotic Tuareg guitar style of regional bands like scene-rulers Tinariwen and newcomers Toumast, often to a single electric circling an acoustic, with vocals and percussion drawn from the nomadic Wodaabe tradition. That the Wodaabes and Tuaregs have a war-scarred history makes this peaceful smolder even more impressive.

WILL HERMES

(Posted: May 29, 2008)

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5of 5 Stars

As I wrote in a previous review on another album from Africa, how great it is to live in this digital age where I can sit at my office desk here in America and hear music from halfway around the world; music I most likely would never have ever heard without the internet. How wistful it makes me wishing this ability had been available to me much earlier in life. As for this music, it's nice to be reminded how powerful and enchanting acoustic music can be, when I'm otherwise constantly bombarded by so-called music made with rooms full of electronic gadgets. This album is a revelation. The reviewer got it exactly right comparing this to Delta Blues, in my opinion. My humble little suburban Houston office never felt so exotic.

May 23, 2008 07:51:47

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