There’s not a world of difference between the new album by Tinariwen and the new, also wonderful, Dirty Projectors album. Even though one album is made by awkward geeks from Brooklyn and the other is made by cool-as-dust nomads and former conscripts of Gadaffi’s army from Mali. It’s all in the skittish guitar flits: hypnotic but unsettling, that force you into different breathing patterns and makes your heart feel like its playing catchup. And it’s in the vocals which alternate between machine gun rapid syllables and the relief of soaring beauty.

‘Imidiwan : Companions’ isn’t an album you should play if you want to stay in your present state of mind. It’s altering, just as their captivating Glastonbury sets have been, over the years. Tinariwen leave you feeling a bit, well, odd.

This is the band’s fourth album and any fears their edges might’ve been polished now people are paying attention were unfounded. If anything, this is a spookier and harder record than 2007’s ‘Aman Iman’. On ‘Tamodjerazt Assis’ you can practically hear lizards scurrying across the amps.

In the sleevenotes there’s a great story about listening to Bob Dylan on a minidisc in the Tessalit hills and ‘Chimes of Freedom’ being joined by the howling of jackals. It doesn’t really compare to our listening to the La Roux album and being interrupted by the Friday fire alarm test. But much of this record, like final track ‘Ere Tasfata Adounia’, shares the loping, menacing grooves of some of Bob’s later, more apocalyptic songs. Songs that sound like they were written by ghosts; ghosts who live in the desert.