Desert blues/rock guitar sensation Bombino has made fans of Dave Matthews, My Morning Jacket, Arcade Fire and North Mississippi All Stars. His electrifying jams capture the spirit of resistance while echoing with guitar riffs reminiscent of fellow Africans Tinariwen and Ali Farka Touré, not to mention rock and blues icons such as Jimi Hendrix, John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Page.

For centuries, the desert town of Agadez has served as a converging point for the great camel caravans driven by the Tuareg that link West Africa with North Africa and the Mediterranean. Born in 1980 at a nomadic camp near this dusty outpost, the young guitarist and songwriter Omara “Bombino” Moctar was raised during an era of armed struggles for Tuareg independence and violent suppression by government forces. Already a superstar in the Tuareg community, with the release of Agadez on Cumbancha Discovery, Bombino’s stature as one of Africa’s hottest young guitarists will soon be revealed to the world.

Agadez showcases Bombino’s captivating vocals, trance-like guitar playing and evocative rhythms and was cited as one of NPR’s “discoveries of the year.”

Vivoscene.com had this to say about Agadez: “The mesmerizing, blistering guitar and vocals…arise straight out of the Sahara Desert, sounding for all the world like the talents of Ry Cooder, Mark Knopfler, Jimmy Page and Richard Thompson playing for all they’re worth. This is musical genius combined with the politics of despair, and in it you hear real struggle, not the kind endured by art students who decide to become rock stars but the kind that matters.”

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