Tartit

Nothing is more evocative of the fascinating expanses of the Sahara desert than the music of Tartit, a Tuareg band consisting of five women and four men residing in the Timbuktu region. Tartit play hypnotic, trance-inducing music: the women sit down, sing, and play cyclic rhythms on their tinde drums, while the men sing and play string instruments, acoustic and electric. The men are veiled, the women aren't. Tuareg society is one of the few throughout Africa in which women are allowed to choose (and divorce) their husbands. The band was formed in a refugee camp, during the Tuareg uprising in the early '90s. Tartit have toured Europe several times, most recently as part of the Desert Blues shows. The album was recorded in Bamako and in the northern Mali desert by (Congotronics producer) Vincent Kenis, on his mobile studio.