- Friday night 5 July*01:00, Eos
* This artist is part of the Friday lineup. Concert starts at 01:00 on the night between Friday and Saturday.
In the strong wave of West African Tuareg bands, few are as intense as Mdou Moctar, named after their iconic guitarist and lead singer Mahamadou "Mdou Moctar" Souleymane.
While other bands in the wave have cited inspirations from the likes of Mark Knopfler and Jimi Hendrix in their approach to the electric guitar, Moctar has named Eddie Van Halen's flamboyant and innovative playing as a reference. Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in a captivating and hard-rocking sound that often leaves you waiting for the guitar to burst into flames.
Mdou Moctar started out as a solo project, but with Ilana: The Creator, released on Sahel Sounds in 2019, Moctar assembled a full band with such dazzling results that NPR called the band "the most fiery psych-rock of the 21st century". The follow-up, Afrique Victime, released on Matador in 2021, was also hailed as a masterpiece by the international music press, and the band's intense grooves and wild guitar mantras have since triumphed at several major festivals.
When Mdou Moctar visits Roskilde this summer, it will be with the brand new album, Funeral for Justice, whose title sets the tone for a collection of furious songs where the band cries out about injustice and the dark legacy of colonialism. It has resulted in some of the band's hardest and most impassioned music to date, setting the stage for an explosion of protest songs and guitar magic.