South Live

Walking into the auditorium the very first thing we saw was a row of smiley faces looking up from the stage. Three women chorus singers were clapping whilst issuing soulful tongue-wobbling cries to a slightly bewildered audience.

And there was clapping. Lots of clapping.

No sooner had I sat down than I found myself clapping along to one of a number of sunny, uplifting songs. I was only able to give my hands a rest during the trancey parts.  Not that I don't like clapping - I'm just not used to doing so much of it.  It was hard not to be uplifted by the energy of Tiris, especially the singing.

Tiris played on a mixture of traditional acoustic intruments and electric ones including bass, keyboards, and - oddly -  a drum machine. 

Almost all of their songs emerged from a swirl of sound that was a bit like an extended tune-up or "tune-in".  It meant that you waited for the songs to emerge, a compelling and hypnotic tune which emerged from a seemingly random sequences of notes on the keyboard.

Brilliant. All bands should do this.

BBC SCR reviews

I liked Tiris so much I bought the CD ("Sandtracks"), produced by Sandblast (www.sandblast-arts.org), a charity that exists to promote the cause of the Saharawi people through their arts.  It's an effective way to promote a cause and it certainly worked on me.