Kel Assouf is a Tuareg musical group making "Tuareg rock" with electronic influences. The band's singer, songwriter, and guitarist is Anana Harouna. Kel Assouf, in Tamasheq, means "

nostalgia Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word ''nostalgia'' is a neoclassical compound derived from Greek language, Greek, consisting of (''nóstos''), a Homeric word me ...

" and "son of eternity".

Career

Anana Harouna was born in Niger and lived in Libya during the Tuareg rebellion of the early 1990s, like the band members of Tinariwen, with whom he has performed. He formed Kel Assouf while arriving in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

in 2006. Oliver Penu, who plays drums on the third album, ''Black Tenere'' (2019), is Belgian, and Sofyann Ben Youssef is a Tunisian who produced the albums ''Tikounen'' (2016) and ''Black Tenere''; he also plays keyboards to add bass lines, and occasionally plays

frame drum A frame drum is a drum that has a drumhead width greater than its depth. It is one of the most ancient musical instruments, and perhaps the first drum to be invented. It has a single drumhead that is usually made of rawhide, but man-made mat ...

in live performances. Their third album, ''Black Tenere'', released in 2019 employs drum lines from the

Roland TR-808 The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as the 808, is a drum machine manufactured by Roland Corporation between 1980 and 1983. It was one of the first drum machines to allow users to program rhythms instead of using preset patterns. ...

and heavy guitar riffs. Robin Denselow, writing in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', gave ''Black Tenere'' four out of five stars, describing the music as "how the music of the Sahara sounds once it has migrated to Europe and fused with other influences".

Discography

* 2010: ''Tin Hinane'' (Igloo Records) * 2016: ''Tikounen'' (Igloo Records/SOWAREX) * 2019: ''Black Tenere'' (Glitterbeat Records)

References

External links

* {{Authority control Nigerien rock music groups Belgian rock music groups Belgian blues musical groups Blues rock groups Berber music Desert blues groups Musical groups established in 2006 2006 establishments in Belgium