This is a music video for Tinariwen, members of the Touareg tribe of nomads of the southern Sahara desert. Their name in their native Tamashek language, written as ⵜⵏⵔⵓⵏ, means "empty places." Lulla is from their new album, Imidiwan: Companions, released last month. It's excerpted from a 30-minute companion DVD.

Lulla by Tinariwen.

A reviewer at the album's Amazon page explains, "Tinariwen are a band of exiled Touareg freedom fighters from Mali once conscripted into Colonel Gaddafi's army (they would often go into battle with guitars strapped to their backs)." Their history is an epic saga.

Their music reminds me most of Issa Bagayogo's -- both have Malian roots. The language is pure sound to me, not resolving into words: mood and music and environment.

Reviews:

Telegraph: In a musical landscape where everything feels slightly second hand, where everything's a reference, an homage or a blatant rehash of what's gone before -- where even the great iconic acts of the Sixties and Seventies now sound like tribute bands to their earlier selves -- it's invigorating to encounter music that sounds utterly unselfconscious, that mines its own earthy terrain apparently indifferent to the fact that the rest of the world is even listening.

A bunch of indigo-robed former guerrillas from the depths of the Malian Sahara, Tinariwen have been acclaimed as possessors of the original DNA of rock and roll - the nearest thing the modern world provides to a real blues feel...

Amoeblog, about an earlier album: "I don't feel like I'm listening to a band play music. I feel like I'm listening to life."

Guardian: The ascent of the Tuareg group from Saharan refugee camps to international stardom is one of popular music's more heartening stories. The standard-bearers of '"desert blues" don't falter on this fourth album, which takes a step back from the sonic clarity of Aman Iman: Water Is Life, in favour of a rootsier sound....

Uncut: And the Touareg/rock'n'roll love-in is fully reciprocated. Tinwariwen's founding father and frontman, Ibrahim "Abaraybone" Ag Alhabib, was always as much a fan of Santana, Bob Marley and Led Zeppelin as he was of Touareg folk melodies. His co-leader Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni grew up listening to tapes by Willie Nelson, The Bee Gees and Boney M ("in the desert, you listen to whatever you can get your hands on," he explains), while younger bandmembers are happy to race around the desert in 4x4s playing Motörhead and Metallica.

Independent: Despite the fact that the band hasn't yet put a foot wrong, this - their fourth album - is still the group's most compelling since their debut. An admirably dry production focuses the attention on the scraping, stroking and plucking of the untreated guitars, as if Ibrahim and co were intent on showing Western rockers that there are always new approaches to their instrument.

Surreal enough for you?

More tunes at their MySpace page (from their previous album, don't miss Assouf) and at Soundcloud.

Thanks to Tom Matrullo for that tip.