6 Music - Music News

Following in the footsteps of last year’s winners Fleet Foxes, Tinariwen have scooped this year’s Uncut music award for their fourth album Imidiwan: Companions.

The band of Touareg musicians from the Sahara desert trumped the likes of Kings of Leon, Bob Dylan, Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective to be awarded the title.

The group were chosen for having the most inspirational album of the year 2008 by a panel of judges which included Fleet Foxes’ frontman Robin Pecknold, broadcasters Mark Radcliffe and Bob Harris, ex-EMI chief executive and chair of the BPI Tony Wadsworth and Mark Cooper, BBC Head Of Music Entertainment.

Tinariwen formed in 1979 and became well known in the 1980s, bringing to the fore political issues in the region.

However, it was not until the early 2000s that they started to gain attention from music fans outside of Africa with touring and performances at festivals in Europe and the USA.

The editor of Uncut magazine, Allan Jones, said as the judges started discussing Imidiwan: Companions they soon realised it had all the elements they wanted to celebrate with the award.

"It's an incredibly exciting, passionate album, brilliantly played.  It just had everything."

Allan Jones

"It’s an incredibly exciting, passionate album, brilliantly played," he told 6 Music. "It just had everything. It felt very, very right and Billy Bragg [a judge] and I were talking about it.

"I could see in his eyes that this was emerging as a front runner and as the discussion went on, people were all realising how much they really loved it."

Jones admitted there was no clear lead this year, so it was particularly difficult to pick the shortlist: "It was excruciating really, it’s been a brilliant year for music."

He added: "Just going through all the albums that had been released that we had given enthusiastic reviews to, the original list of 25 for our long list could have been four times that long."

Ibrahim Ag Alhabib of Tinariwen said the band were proud to be honoured by the "important" magazine.

"It gives us the strength to carry on working and spreading the message about the peace of our desert home, and I’m glad that our music can cross the frontiers and talk to people around the world," was his response.

See below for the full short list:

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
Bob Dylan – Together Through Life (Columbia)
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca (Domino)
Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (Warp)
Kings of Leon – Only By The Night (Columbia)
The Low Anthem – Oh My God Charlie Darwin (Bella Union)
Tinariwen – Imidiwan: Companions (Independiente)
Wilco – Wilco (Nonesuch)