TARTIT
Canceled | Nothing is more evocative of the fascinating expanses of the Sahara desert than the music of Tartit, a Tuareg band consisting of five women and four men residing in the Timbuktu region.
Tartit play hypnotic, trance-inducing music: the women sit down, sing, and play cyclic rhythms on their tinde drums, while the men sing and play string instruments, acoustic and electric. The tinde, played exclusively by women, is made from a small wooden mortar that the women use to grind grains, and which is covered with a goatskin. The men are veiled, the women aren't. Tuareg society is one of the few throughout Africa in which women are allowed to choose (and divorce) their husbands.
The word Tartit means union; it symbolizes the link that exists among these musicians. The band was formed in a refugee camp, during the Tuareg uprising in the early '90s. These men and women of the desert, in their colourful attire, express themselves primarily through their music. They cultivate their Tuareg traditions wherever they go, whether they are in exile, refugee camps or on tour. For the Tuareg, music is neither a profession, nor a sign of some exceptional trait. It is, quite simply, the identity of a nomad people that seeks to live freedom, without borders with the meaning of the bands name.
Tartit have toured Europe several times, most recently as part of the Desert Blues shows. Their second album Abacabok was recorded in Bamako and in the northern Mali desert by (Congotronics producer) Vincent Kenis, on his mobile studio.
US TOUR CANCELED DUE TO TRAVEL COMPLICATIONS
Sat Sep 22 | 8 pm
CSPS | 1103 Third St SE | Cedar Rapids
$20 advance | $25 day of show

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