REVIEW: Imarhan - Essam

Very few instruments have crossed the undefined cross-cultural barrier of communication like the electric guitar. Like a fire from heaven, when in the possession of certain mortals you realise it’s a tool from a higher plane. It’s capable of so much, it speaks different languages depending on who's got their hands on it. There aren’t many places where this is more apparent than the Sahara, where the language it speaks is one of an unpretentious love for the experience of music. You may have seen the videos online as you scroll down the endless video rabbit-hole; groups of Tuareg men in the desert at night, nothing but pitch darkness for miles, the only light coming from the band and the circle of people around them. The guitars played by people who aren't thinking about landing a record deal, they’re just playing because the music soothes the soul, because it's the sound of who they are. This is the world of Tishoumaren, or Assouf, or what the occidental ethnomusicologists have denoted as “desert blues”.

It is a long and much-covered story, but to those unfamiliar, Tishoumaren has captivated the world of music in the last few years. It is a genre that has existed for a number of decades, with the pioneers working with limited resources. The Tuareg people are a nomadic Amazigh people from the western Saharan region who have been fighting for their very existence since the partitioning of French West Africa. From the background of the Tuareg rebellion, trailblazers like IBRAHIM AG ALHABIB traded blank cassette tapes and crude mp3s on flip-phones of their virtuoso guitar playing synchronised with traditional Tuareg music. As a result, you get a genre of danceable songs that feature spectacular playing. When the Tuareg rebellion ended in the 90s, the bands truly began to take form, and now many of the groups are prominent in certain musical circles. Bands like TINARIWEN, BOMBINO, LES FILLES DE ILLIGHADAD and MDOU MOCTAR tour North America and Europe now, end up in vinyl collections next to the VELVET UDNERGROUND and THE STOOGES, and get written up in music magazines alongside the greats of rock ‘n’ roll. They all have incredible stories of their own and are worth looking into. More recently, however, new Tishoumaren groups have been emerging and finding great success online, bands like ETRAN DE L'AÏR, SONGHOY BLUES, and the subject of this review, IMARHAN.

Few seemed to be moving this genre into the future like IMARHAN. Hailing from a southern Algerian city and the gateway to the Sahara, Tamanrasset, IMARHAN's mission is to expand what has been placed there by their predecessors, injecting psychedelia, folk, and funk into the mix. They have had only three other albums before, but their most recent one is Essam (meaning lightning in Tamasheq). It proposes to push the genre ahead, but does it succeed? Let’s find out.

The opening track, Ahitmanin is a stripped back affair, a treated acoustic guitar plucking away along the vocal line in C#, with some ambient synths simmering underneath. It evokes the image of a sand dune being gently blown over, a slow and deliberate number. It serves as a nice overture for the album, something gentle and subdued. The next track and lead single is Derhan N’Oulhine, a love ballad that rides upon a phased-out beat and a clean electric guitar. There are loops of claps and what sounds like a traditional Tuareg drum, the tinde, the whole arrangement is almost like a pocket orchestra. It really is the heart and soul of this album, an absolutely beautiful number as well as infectiously catchy. The hooks on this thing are absolutely unprecedented, and when it picks up, so does your heart. You don’t have to be fluent in Tamasheq for this one to move you, it is definitely the highlight, proof that sheer emotion transcends the barrier of language. Tellalt is next, an ode to a type of rare acacia wood used by the Tuareg people. Between the fingerpicking, it has quite a reggae pacing to it, with the guitar carrying a double skank rhythm throughout the song. The final verse really hits from the heart; “One day, the truth will appear/Our country will come back to its people/And our flag will be raised.” Moving stuff. The next song Tamiditin is another stripped back one. With a rhythm that seems to mosey along with the minimalist leads, it’s one that evokes journeying and being far from home, yearning to return to a loved one so far away. Universal themes played through a Tuareg lens. For large swaths it is only the tinde and the electric bass, then the guitar comes in, plucking away like birdsong. The world is large, but the yearning heart grows ever larger.

Okcheur may feature a perky flanged guitar and funky bass, but don’t let that fool you, there’s a palpable melancholy to it all. It is a song of uncertainty, of a crossroads, “Help me to find my way/Show it to me/I’m fearful of getting lost/I have the feeling that I’ve strayed and forgotten myself.” A nice easy-going tune, if you pay no mind to the lyrics. There’s a lovely keyboard flare at the end of this one as well. A small moment that sticks. “Azaman Amoutay” has something of a muted club beat, but like the last song hides something else beneath; in reality it’s a lament for living in modern times. It’s a theme that resonates with all young people today; the feeling of disenfranchisement, alienation from their expectations of life versus their reality. There’s quite a spacey mood to this, helped in part by the droning synthesizers and dreamy delivery from guitarist and lead vocalist SADAM, as well as something that sounds like a dulcimer.  Things take a turn with Tin Arayth as the mood shifts quickly to upbeat, the beat is a strong four-on-the-floor and the verses are done with a near call-and-response. The guitar on this is red-hot, with miniature solos festooned throughout. The lyrics talk of sitting on the mountaintop near their hometown, watching the multi-cultural workers find their way, contemplating the mountains at the mouth of the Sahara. Watching the world go by, their world. The world of IMARHAN.

Tinfoussen brings the energy down a bit, and combines a simple guitar line with the percussion, doing something complex and simple at the same time. It’s very clearly about loss, from the vibe you can instantly tell. The suffering voice is heard through the song, “I’m going through a painful time/Everything seems gloomy, lost in darkness/I’m like a long night/So black and endless.” This is heavy stuff, something that wouldn’t be out of place on a WARNING record, but the overbearingly large atmosphere amplifies the melancholy. Adounia Tochal is another song about loss, one lynchpinned by a mourning chorus, it sounds almost like DIRE STRAITS Brothers in Arms at times. The final track Assagasswar is a hypnotic way to end. The modular synthesizers do the most lifting here, as the name of the track is punctuated after each verse. As well as this, the tinde returns here, as well as another traditional instrument, the imzad, sort of a one-stringed violin. It’s the first and unfortunately last time that this album ventures into the realm of psychedelia proper, but as the album fades out into synth and humming, you can’t help but peer a bit into your own soul and wonder when the last time you were truly happy was.

So that’s Essam, truly one of IMARHAN's more emo endeavours. It’s also one of their ventures into the realm of modern production, with long-time engineer MAXIME KOSINETZ now as album producer enlisting the aid of EMILE PAPANDREOU of French electronic duo UTO (who had a song appear in ‘Emily In Paris’) to help with modular synthesiser. Both of them travelled to Tamanrasset to work with the band, and the result is Essam. While there were moments where the synchronisation between Assouf and other genres were at their height (especially strong on Derhan N’Oulhine), the modular synth seemed to work less in tandem with the group than parallel to it, running alongside the group in their element rather than intertwining with the music. You get the sense that Imarhan could have pushed it further, or even done less of it, that is, after all, the great challenge of modernising something traditional (see: The Howlin' Wolf Album by HOWLIN' WOLF for more on that). Nonetheless, it certainly aided in the creation of atmosphere, especially imagery pertaining to the desert. With song themes ranging from isolation, political upheavals, loss, to even acacia trees, the overall mood on Essam is one of mourning, physical mourning for the loss of a loved one, and more intellectual mourning for the feeling of disenfranchisement.

Essam doesn’t always succeed in what it sets out to do, the production choices can’t help but feel a little safe and the genre synchronisation is a little underused. But when it works, it's fantastic. There’s no novelty with IMARHAN, the music is good no matter where you’re from, and the themes resonate with everyone. It’s recognisably a Tishoumaren record, but they’re driving the genre forward into the great unknown, from Tamanrasset, from the edge of the Sahara, from a place most of us will never see. 

Score: 7/10

Essam will be released on 16th January 2026 via City Slang.

Words: Kiarash Golshani

Photos: Marie Planeille