Unofficial concept design for a poster to mark Tinariwen’s appearance at Green Man 2024. I discovered Tinariwen around 2021, when I came across the Guardian article “Turin Brakes’ playlist: 10 songs that take them back on the road” – which included the track Izarharh Tenere by Tinariwen – recalling a time when both bands shared a room at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.
They’ve since become a regular staple of my listening, delving into their back catalogue became a real escape through those difficult pandemic years. Fast forward to 2024, and I couldn’t believe my luck when the line up for Green Man 2024 was released and Tinariwen were to appear on the Mountain’s Foot stage on Saturday 17th August.
The main artwork is a sketch I did based on a stunning photo of Ibrahim Ag Alhabib by Nadia Nid El Mourid that appears in an article by Andy Morgan “TINARIWEN – Sons of the desert”. There’s something heroic and soulful about the image that really evokes the blues. Around this sketch portrait I wanted to capture something of the amazing spectacle and colour contrast of this blues band from the Saharan-Mali playing beneath a mountain in the lush green valleys of Wales (unfortunately some grass had a haircut in the making of the typeface).
Thank you for coming to Wales Tinariwen!
