Mariem Hassan Tarham ya Allah shudada

Mariem Hassan, who spent much of her life in an Algerian refugee camp, until moving to Spain 10 years ago, is from a family of Western Saharan nomads, the saharawi, and her music draws from the poetry and intense repetitive drones of the desert. In fact, her last LP, Shouka, dug deep into guitar-driven sand dune stomps that dispensed with much of the western additives and gave the best of the current crop of “desert rock” bands a run for their collective money. Yet, with El Aaiún Egdat (El Aaiun is the Western Sahara’s largest city; Egdat means 'on fire'), the bluesy-bent note guitar fills, as well as the woodwinds of Gabriel Flores dominate, much to the frustration of anyone who fell in love with her via Shouka. But then it’s never been Hassan’s plan to produce typical saharawi guitar music, much less make the same record twice. She co-composes the tunes, and her lyrics often deal with the issues of Western Saharan autonomy, praise of the Arab Spring or occasionally, lost love and the loneliness that comes with it.