When the place you call home makes it a crime to play the guitar, music takes on new urgency. Such is the case with Terakaft, a group of Tuareg rockers who make desert blues that's nothing short of revolutionary. From northern Mali, where Islamist extremists banned secular music, the nomads forge electrifying guitar lines that evoke undulating expanses of bleached-out dunes. Their compositions loop and whirl, propelled by serpentine percussion, drawing the listener inward as the performers call out into the night, singing in their native Tamashek about exile, despair, rage, and hope.