Desert Blues Archives - Backseat Mafia

News: Tinariwen announce 2027 Australian tour behind new album ‘Hoggar’

Tinariwen are returning to Australia in 2027, bringing more than four decades of desert blues with them for a run of shows across February and March. Presented by Top Shelf,…

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News: Niger’s psych-rock guitar sensation Mdou Moctar announces debut Australian tour in 2023, including the iconic WOMADelaide festival.

Mistletone proudly present, for their very first appearances in Australia, Niger’s Mdou Moctar, with the full band performing across a number of dates in March 2023. A self-taught Tuareg guitar…

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Mali’s “Hendrix of the Sahara”, Vieux Farka Touré returns to Australia with new album ‘Les Racines’ in tow.

Legendary Malian guitarist, Vieux Farka Touré, along with his band, has announced a full Australian tour in 2023 from February 24 until March 11. One of the world’s most respected…

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Live review: Tamikrest play breathtaking set at the Nolan Gallery, MONA, nipaluna/Hobart, 26/10/2022.

I am a relatively recent convert to some of the “desert rock/desert blues” that has come to notice in increasing amounts in Western countries over the past 5 years or…

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News: Malian Desert Rock Icons, Tamikrest, announce inaugural tour to Australia.

Over the last 30 years, there has been a slow, yet steady emergence from the Malian, and Western Sahara regions of a top-flight style of world music known as ‘desert…

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New Track: Noori & His Dorpa Band release debut single ‘Al Amal’, scorching ethio-soul vibes from Port Sudan.

So TikTok does have a function! Excavated from the app by those seekers of the undiscovered at Ostinato Records, Noori & His Dorpa Band bring the power and passion of…

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Droppin’ Knowledge: On His LP Border Patrol, Singer-Songwriter Farees Turns Trauma Into Art, With Humor, Grace and Righteous Anger

When Farees, the singer-song writer, released his stirring debut solo album in 2015, Mississippi to Sahara, (under the name Faris), he did what many artists do; he planned a tour…

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