Tindouf by SAVANA FUNK

SAVANA FUNK – Tindouf

“TINDOUF” is Savana Funk’s visionary new album. 8 tracks of powerful and psychedelic grooves recorded live on analog tape. Known for their explosive live sound they managed to fully capture the gutsy experience and raw energy of their show with a vintage esthetic and a deep interplay cultivated with over a thousand concerts and countless hours playing together.

The original line-up of Aldo Betto on guitar, Blake C. S. Franchetto on bass, and Youssef Ait Bouazza on drums has now expanded to a quartet adding Nicola Peruch on keyboards. Nicola has worked with the band since Savana Funk’s first album and has finally become an official member being involved in all the phases of this release, from composing to recording.

Most of the tunes sprung up during soundchecks or post-concert jams when everybody had already left, a subdued, low-lit backdrop attended only by a solitary barman, while others started by an initial musical idea brought in by one of the band members and augmented collectively. The embryos of the material can be traced back to early 2019 and were fully developed in the autumn of that same year when the band retreated to Borgo Rosso, a farmhouse near Tredozio (in the hills located between Bologna and Florence). Here they found the right mood and inspiration thanks to the warm autumn colors and the silent, rural atmosphere and a beneficial sun.A week later the body of work was completed with a bunch of new tunes composed during the stay.

The world-renowned trombonist Gianluca Petrella from Bari appears on one of the tracks, an acquaintance made by Savana Funk at the ‘Jova Beach Party’ where the band left its mark during their live performances which included jams with Jovanotti in front of tens of thousands of people.
Max Castlunger, a percussionist from South Tyrol, has already been a guest on the band’s first album. Here, he is present on nearly every track, contributing greatly to the album’s soundscape.
Furthermore, Elena Majoni is the violinist on the title track.

Tindouf is a city in Algeria that hosts a major refugee camp in the Hammada plain aka the “Devil’s garden”, so-called due to its inhospitable climate, extreme heat, and sandstorms.
Savana Funk by their very nature feel close to issues regarding multiculturalism and immigration; included on their second album entitled “Savana Funk” is a tune titled “Calais Blues”, which references Calais, another hotspot border zone. On that track, the band tries to describe, through music, the journey, the dream, the palpitation, the fear, the hope, and the madness that dwells inside these nomadic human beings.
With this new release, Savana Funk is asking their audiences not to look the other away, but to become aware of the historical significance of these migrations, to keep in focus what it means to be human and the consequent right that we all have, to search for a better future. To open our hearts and feel close to other human beings from all parts of the world as our brothers and sisters.

Savana Funk

Aldo, Blake and Youssef (respectively from Italy, England
and Morocco) first met in spring 2015, in
Bologna, Italy. It became immediately apparent to them that
they shared a special bond on an emotional
and musical level. A mixture of
African music, funk, blues, psychedelic rock and jazz
influences runs throughout their original repertoire.
In 2018 they officially adopted the name SAVANA FUNK.