Even though The Walkabouts mastermind Chris Eckman no longer produced the latest Tamikrest CD "Kidal", the musicians' careers remain forever intertwined. They first met at the legendary Au Desert festival in Essakane - the folk- and country-affine alternative rocker from Seattle and the "desert rockers" who translated their traditional Tuareg music, also influenced by Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley, with electric guitars. In this way they wanted to draw attention to the plight of their people and set the longings of the young population to music. At joint "tent sessions" they let the guitars speak - each not really speaking the language of the other. "The music, the people, the environment - it was just overwhelming", Eckman could hardly put his enthusiasm into words afterwards. "I spent the three days like in a trance." The beginning of a friendship. In 2010, Dirtmusic (Eckman with Hugo Race and Chris Brokaw) and Tamikrest toured together, also performing at the Bread Factory. "Influenced by flamenco, Pink Floyd and Algerian pop musician Rachid Taha, their hypnotic sound is reminiscent of intense and simply structured powerful blues, folk and American desert rock," says a review of "Kidal" in the music magazine INTRO. Kidal, by the way, is the hometown of the Tamikrest musicians, far up in the northeast of Mali, populated by semi-settled Tuareg and surrounded by seemingly endless desert. It's where she'd love to return from her Algerian exile.
Text source and more information about this event: https://www.brotfabrik.de/index.php?id=25&month=10&year=2018
