SAE Magazine 13-3

58 PEOPLE & BUSINESS // CHRIS ECKMAN I essentially just traveled around and just listened, as my goal was not to get involved in any projects. I did not take any recording device or my guitar with me. It was a wonderful experience and I ended up at a festival near the ancient city of Timbuktu in the dunes of the Sahara. It is called Festival in The Desert and it happens every January. There, I saw a really large number of fantastic bands and artists and I noticed there was something happening. Several young Tuareg bands, which are nomadic people from the Sahara, were playing what could be called rock music. The line-up consisted of two guitars, bass, drums and maybe a percussionist and the songs were based on a traditional song forms. Often the guitars were played on battery-powered amps because in the Sahara there isn’t really electricity. I was really intrigued by this and after I got back I ended up starting a new project called Dirtmusic. After working with those guys for a little bit I had this idea that we could go back to this festival and play because every year they have a few Western bands that get invited there. We applied to play in the festival, got accepted and went to the festival. Within 10 minutes of being there we heard from the tent next to us this band playing and these guys were Tamikrest. They were quite young at the time, in their early twenties, and one thing rapidly led to another. We spent three days in their tent just basically jam- ming and one year latter we found ourselves in Bamako the capital of the country, making a record with them. This record is called BKO music songs we performe mikrest. After that it became clea wonderful album worth of to go. I looked for a situat could record their album the producer. I have noticed that in their you produced, there is an in the last track. Is this choice of instrumen folk and Americana influe The Walkabouts? Do you e the sounds of American productions? You certainly gravitate to an artist or producer. I do not think that in anyo all tonalities are equal. We tend to have for what sounds we favour over an In general I like darker sou particularly bright. I do not think th hand all sounds are e We tend to hav reasons a palle favour ove

SAE Magazine 13-3

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