(headline image: Bab L’ Bluz – Photo by Robyn Skinner)
Fresh off a successful UK headline tour, Moroccan-French quartet Bab L’ Bluz launches their first-ever U.S. tour this spring. Beginning April 17 in Saugerties, New York, the band will perform in cities including Holyoke (MA), New York City (NY), Lafayette (LA), and Little Rock (AR), before concluding in Seattle (WA) on May 5.
The tour supports Swaken, their second album on Real World Records. Recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Wiltshire, England, the album was composed partly in Morocco, hometown of lead vocalist and electric awisha lute player Yousra Mansour, and largely during an international tour that spanned Adelaide, Barcelona, Essawira, Lomé, Dougga, and New York City.
Mansour’s commanding, melismatic vocals and searing lute work are front and center. Meanwhile, the band, armed with electric guimbri, keyboards, flutes, karkabas castanets, and percussion, plays with impressive synchronicity.
Swaken features eleven high-energy tracks that fuse psychedelic rock, funk, and blues with the driving rhythms of North Africa’s Gnawa, Amazigh, Hassani, and Huara traditions.
Bab L’ Bluz USA tour 2025
April
17 SAUGERTIES, NY The Local
18 HOLYOKE, MA De La Luz Soundstage
19 NEW YORK, NY Joe’s Pub
25 LAFAYETTE, LA Festival International
26 LAFAYETTE, LA Festival International
May
01 LITTLE ROCK, AR Arkansas Museum of Fine Art
05 SEATTLE, WA Nectar Lounge
Author: World Music Central News Room
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