A preview of the Festival au Désert Florence with the band that has become a symbol of the music and culture of the Tuareg people: Tinariwen.

An opportunity not to be missed to listen to the music of this extraordinary group – whose name in the Tamashek language means ‘deserts’ – which arrives in Italy (in Florence, Milan and Turin) with the new album “Amatssou”.

Tickets are already on sale ticketone.it

Tuareg nomads and cowboy drifters. Camel trains and mustang horses. The timeless horizon of the endless Sahara and the wild frontier of the Old West – and when the day is done, guitars around the campfire, singing songs of loss and longing and ‘home on the range’.
Several thousand miles of ocean may divide the desert blues of Tinariwen and the authentic country music of rural America but the links are as palpable as they are romantic.
On this new album, Tinariwen set out to explore these shared sensibilities as banjos, fiddles and pedal steel mix seamlessly with the Tuareg band’s trademark snaking guitar lines and hypnotic grooves.

The album’s title, “Amatssou”, is Tamashek for “Beyond the Fear” and it fits. Tinariwen have always been characterised by their fearlessness – and as Bob Dylan once said, the power of rock’n’roll is that it makes us “oblivious to the fear” as the music gives us the strength and resilience to confront adversity.
Tuareg culture is as old as that of ancient Greece or Rome, but fusing traditional West African and Arabic styles with blues, country, folk and rock influences, the songs on “Amatssou” speak to the current and often tough reality of Tuareg life today.

The concert is scheduled at the Anfiteatro delle Cascine | Ultravox Firenze and is organised by Fondazione Fabbrica Europa together with Music Pool and Le Nozze Di Figaro.

The Festival au désert will continue at Parco delle Cascine in Florence on 28, 29 and 30 June 2023 as part of Estate Fiorentina.

ph. Marie Planeille