Imarhan

Imarhan have always ripped up the rulebook. Since 2006, the band has challenged preconceptions about the Tuareg desert blues sound known as assouf by blending its ancient poetry and rhythms with funk, psych-rock and pan-African rhythms. Across three albums, the Algerian group has toured extensively internationally, collaborated with Gruff Rhys and Howe Gelb, and opened for Kurt Vile. With their fourth album, Essam, Imarhan create a watershed moment in Tuareg music, spicing the traditional style with hypnotic chants, textural electronica and visceral blasts of fuzzbox blues. Lead vocalist Sadam notes that the band took new risks with this record, sampling traditional percussion like the calabash and jerrycans and processing them through modular synthesisers.