Back in 2013, the story of Songhoy Blues made the headlines. After being forced to move to Bamako by a jihadist group that banned music in northern Mali, Garba Touré founded the band “to recreate that lost ambience of the north and make all the refugees relive those northern songs”....
Tag Archives: desert blues
![Album Review: Tamikrest – Kidal [Glitterbeat Records, 17th March 2017]](https://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/a2344764365_10-335x335.jpg)
For Glitterbeat Records, Tamikrest’s Kidal represents the perfect balance between the rock and meditative elements. The importance given to the message in the Tamashek language expresses the concerns of a marginalised people. The Tuareg people have a long history of hardship, oppression and insane control of political, economic and religious...
![Preview: Field Day @ Victoria Park [London, 3rd June 2017]](https://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/fd17_web-square_170424_full23b-335x335.jpg)
Field Day Festival returns for its 11th year this coming June. Held in Victoria Park, East London as has become its tradition, this time however it will take place on the Saturday only, rather than lasting for two days as it has in the past. Fear not though, as despite...
![Album Review: Alhousseini Anivolla – Osas, It’s Time [Fidjomusic, 8th April 2017]](https://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/17800385_1230826400367474_3309708329543545359_n-335x346.jpg)
Former Tinariwen & Etran Finatawa guitarist and vocalist Alhousseini Anivolla is a self-proclaimed ambassador for cultural diversity in a changing world; a nomad whose experiences inspire and inform his song writing. This second solo album Osas – It’s Time is simple in both concept and execution. Stripped down production and...
![Album Review: Bombino – Azel [Partisan Records, 1st April 2016]](https://www.rhythmpassport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/a3170313722_10-335x335.jpg)
Azel is the name of a small town on the outskirts of the city of Agadez, in Niger, where the only Tuareg school in the country is located. Azel, however, is also a word of common usage in the Tamasheq language: it means namely ‘roots’ or ‘stems’ of a tree,...
London Tribes is bringing to London Tuareg guitarist Bombino, presenting to the public his new album Azel. A member of the Tuareg Ifoghas clan, Bombino (stage name of Omara Moctar) came to prominence in 2011, thanks to his album Agadez, that was acclaimed worldwide for it represented desert-rock at its...
Songhoy Blues are a music mystery: the more they become popular and people listen to their music, the more they defy any definition. There are those who say that the four musicians from Gao are the last true desert blues interpreters, then there are critics affirming that they sound psychedelic,...
