Imarhan - Aboogi (LP) - Transparent Blue Vinyl

Imarhan’s third album, Aboogi, is the kind of record that sneaks up on you. It doesn’t rush. It doesn’t posture. It settles into a patient, sun-warmed groove and lets the details do the work. Released in 2022 on City Slang and named for the studio they built in Tamanrasset, Algeria, Aboogi feels like a homecoming for the Tuareg group. You can hear the room. You can practically feel the dust on the floorboards. After the bigger, punchier moves of Temet, this one leans into intimacy and place, a document of a band recording in their own space on their own terms.

That studio context matters. Aboogi was recorded in Tamanrasset, far from the usual big-city infrastructure, and the album reflects that sense of autonomy. Guitars are close and chiming. Hand percussion is dry and precise. Vocals, sung in Tamasheq by frontman Iyad Moussa Ben Abderrahmane, sit up front, warm and unhurried. Instead of pushing for sheer volume, Imarhan trusts in interlocking parts and an unshakeable pocket. The result is hypnotic rather than heavy, a flow built on the quiet tension between acoustic textures and the light electricity of their desert blues lineage.

If you’ve followed Imarhan since their 2016 self-titled debut, the shift feels intentional. The band has always balanced tradition with a modern, almost pop-minded clarity, and Aboogi sharpens that identity. Guitars circle like birds riding thermals. Bass lines ground the songs with a gentle insistence. The rhythms tick forward with a dancer’s grace. Nothing is flashy, yet the cumulative pull is strong. It’s music made for late light and long drives, or for turning up slightly louder than you think on a Sunday morning.

“Achinkad” became a calling card around the album’s release, and it’s easy to understand why. The groove is loping and sure-footed, and the chorus opens like a roadside shade in the heat. Imarhan have a talent for phrasing that makes repetition feel alive. Small shifts in emphasis or harmony give a song a new face on the third or fourth listen. Aboogi thrives on those details. You notice a distant shaker, a guitar figure darting between the beat, a vocal line curling back on itself in quiet conversation with the rhythm. It is careful without being fussy.

There’s a lived-in humility here that sets Imarhan apart from their Saharan peers. Tinariwen’s dust-streaked anthems and Mdou Moctar’s overdriven fire are obvious cousins, but Imarhan move with a lighter touch. Aboogi favors closeness over spectacle. That closeness also carries emotional weight. Even if you don’t speak Tamasheq, the themes are clear enough in the delivery and the contour of the melodies. Home, friendship, survival, pride, the tug of memory. The album carries the steady strength of a community project, which makes sense for a band who built a studio not just to record themselves, but to nurture a scene around them.

Critics picked up on that spirit. When the record arrived, it drew strong notices from places like The Guardian and Pitchfork, with reviewers praising the album’s sense of space and the way it distilled the band’s core strengths. You can hear why from the first few tracks. The production is honest. Guitars don’t feel stacked or sanded down. The groove breathes. If you’ve ever fallen in love with a record because you can hear the air in the room, Aboogi hits that pleasure center fast.

It also happens to be a great fit for vinyl. Aboogi vinyl offers a wider picture of the room tone and the soft edges of those guitar lines, and it invites you to sit with side A as a single mood, then side B as a gentle turn of the dial. If you’re crate digging and see Imarhan vinyl in the new arrivals, don’t hesitate. And if you’re hunting from home, it’s easy enough to buy Imarhan records online. Collectors who track Imarhan albums on vinyl know this one rewards a quiet evening, a decently set-up system, and a bit of patience. I’ve even pointed friends in a Melbourne record store to it when they asked for something hypnotic and grounded. For those searching out vinyl records Australia shops often stock, keep your eyes peeled.

What lingers after a few plays is how welcoming Aboogi feels. It’s not trying to prove anything, yet it says a lot about the value of recording where you live, with people you trust, in a language that carries your history. The melodies hang in the air like the last lines of a story told around a fire. The band sounds both lighter and more rooted. That’s a rare balance. Put simply, Aboogi is the most inviting way into Imarhan’s world, and a reminder that quiet confidence can hit just as hard as a wall of amps.