Rock musicians have long styled themselves as revolutionaries. But few have managed to articulate what, precisely, they are rebelling against. Tinariwen have no such problem. A shifting collective from northeastern Mali, Tinariwen sing of the Touareg struggle for independence, of time spent in Libyan refugee camps and of fighting in a real rebellion (in Niger in 1990).

What makes Tinariwen so alluring is that their rugged authenticity comes with a kind of music that is exotic but strangely familiar, too. Aman Iman, their third album, is that rarity in world music: an album that can be instantly enjoyed by a Western rock audience but which doesn’t feel compromised. There is none of the gaudy studio gloss that has smothered so many African artists in their efforts to reach a wider audience.

Cler Achel begins roughly like the Rolling Stones’ Not Fade Away, then builds up a spidery momentum as the rhythm chugs on, the vocal chants intensify and the guitar riffs twist around one another into an elaborate mesh. There is something psychedelic, too, about these mournful meditations on freedom and exile, on struggles with authority and the Saharan climate. Assouf is a snaking boogie which suggests that Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, the band’s linchpin, could pass muster as an African Jerry Garcia.

As with so much music from Africa, Aman Iman is undercut by difficult ironies. Tinariwen’s music mythologises the nomadic traditions of their people, disappearing now that many Touaregs are forced to live in cities. But without that shift in lifestyle, Tinariwen would never have picked up electric guitars and found such a potent, boundary-smashing way to express their plight. It is often easy to patronise African musicians by describing their music as simple, even elemental. Aman Iman, for all its bewitching air of otherness, proves that the complexities of life, culture and influence are what make it so powerful.

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