Tinariwen and Fool's Gold Approach 'World Music' From Different Worlds

Of course, such cultural exchange must be treated with a great deal of caution. This kind of friendly borrowing and bartering is heavily rooted in colonial histories of exploitation; uncomfortably, it often takes a band of mostly white boys to make this music more palatable for American audiences. The common goal shared by Tinariwen and Fool's Gold, for instance, should not overshadow the "opposite directions," as Pesacov puts it, from which they've approached it. These two desert-based bands hail from very different deserts: While Fool's Gold espouse travel and exploration from a position of relative privilege, Tinariwen, whose members met in a Touareg refugee camp in Libya, speak in terms of displacement and uprooting: The band's name, which means "empty spaces" in Temashek, encompasses both the potential of filling those spaces and the mourning for what once lived there.

Fool's Gold, for one, seem willing and perhaps even eager to discuss the potentially complicated math of this exchange. Pesacov aims to use these shows to encourage dialogue, both among fans and between the artists themselves—a rare chance to "communicate musically" with a band he greatly admires but with whom he does not share a common verbal language or history. When entered into from a position of respect and open-mindedness, the polyglot sounds of bands like Tinariwen and Fool's Gold can hurdle both musical and sociopolitical boundaries, providing inspiration that is at once joyful, innovative, and, most importantly, mutual.

Marianne Williams

Fool's Gold, thankfully, not taking this too seriously

Tinariwen and Fool's Gold play Highline Ballroom February 18 and the Bell House February 19