(Brick’s Picks, LAWeekly)

Wednesday at the Troubadour is the extraordinary Malian band Tinariwen, about whom every desert cliché has been written by rock critics already. All we’ll say is we are absolute suckers for these guys, and highly recommend their albums if you like your Malian sounds cut through with earthy blues and a “Memo From Turner” kind of Stones groove, or if you’ve ever felt the eerie pull of gnawa. And while we do not encourage the use of illegal substances of any kind whatsoever, if you should somehow catch a whiff of hash in the air, breathe deep and listen.