Bombino, who is currently touring the US with his "electrifying" show (A.V. Club), has made NPR Music's list of its 25 Favorite Albums of the Year (So Far) for his Nonesuch debut album, Nomad. "Full of undeniably hypnotic trance-guitar music, and produced by The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, Nomad rocks like no other record this year," writes NPR Music's Bob Boilen. "Hearing Bombino in any American nightclub, the reaction is ecstasy and complete connection ... It's blues, it's trance and it's psychedelic in its repetition. Oh, and did I mention it rocks?" Bombino tells New York magazine: "There are two kinds of music in the desert. If it makes you want to listen to it, it’s the blues. If it makes you want to move, it’s rock.”

Tuareg guitarist, singer, and songwriter Bombino kicks off the first US leg of his tour featuring music from his new album, Nomad. The month-long tour begins with a set at the Sasquatch! Festival in Washington on Saturday, followed by additional stops out West, down South, across the Midwest, and into the Northeast, including headline shows, supporting slots with Gogol Bordello, festival sets at Wakarusa, Bonnaroo, and Celebrate Brooklyn, and more. Bombino and the band return to North America for the next leg of the tour in July.

Bombino, who closes out the current leg of his European tour in Portugal this weekend before heading to the States on tour, is the subject of a piece on BBC Africa. "What I like about rock and blues music is that I can transmit emotions through this type of music to my fans, and that's really important to me," he tells the BBC. "Rock music is similar to the traditional Tende music; it is very popular in Niger. Nomads enjoy rock because they love dancing like crazy to it." 

Bombino is featured on the latest episode of the BBC World Service program Outlook, which explores "extraordinary personal stories from around the world." "Traditional music is one of the forces which has united the Tuareg people who are now scattered across many African countries," says host Matthew Bannister, "and that music has been updated for a new generation by the guitarist Omara 'Bombino' Moctar." On the show, Bombino discusses the power of music to affect change. "I hope my songs can present part of a solution," he says. "The guitar can pass on the news."

Bombino brought his European tour, featuring music of his new album, Nomad, to London's Village Underground last night, where the crowd cheered the Tuareg guitarist "as if he were a rock star," reports the Guardian in a four-star review. Bombino's "performance from the start was energetic and full-tilt ... He was clearly enjoying himself, and his enthusiasm was contagious." The Independent, previewing the concert, describes Bombino as "brilliant" and Nomad as "a bone-shaker of a new album." The tour continues in Europe then heads to the States in late May for headline dates, festival sets, and opening spots with Amadou & Mariam, Gogol Bordello and Robert Plant. 

Happy Record Store Day! Today is the sixth annual celebration of the unique culture surrounding independently owned record stores around the world, and a number of Nonesuch Records artists have special, limited-edition vinyl releases out now to mark the occasion: The Black Keys, Bombino, Iron and Wine, and Punch Brothers. These recordings are also available for a limited time in the Nonesuch Store.

The line-up for the 2013 Luminato Festival in Toronto has been announced, and included among this year’s performers are Bombino, Amadou & Mariam, Laurie Anderson, and Carolina Chocolate Drops. All of these artists will give free concerts in David Pecaut Square at the Hub of the Festival, which runs from June 14 to 23. Among the Luminato Festival’s other highlights will be a multi-artist, two-night tribute to Joni Mitchell at Massey Hall.

Bombino's Nonesuch Records debut album, Nomad, has earned the top spot on the Billboard World Music album chart, landing at #1 in its first week of release. The album, produced by Dan Auerbach, has earned four stars in Rolling Stone. “Bombino’s style is raw, spacious, tuneful, deeply hypnotic and remarkably fluid—even when he’s shooting rapid-fire notes, the effect is like ripples gently unfurling in a pond," writes Rolling Stone's Will Hermes. “A perfect match of sound and soul, the set introduces a new guitar hero, and confirms Auerbach’s arrival as a roots-music producer to be reckoned with.”

Bombino, who made his Nonesuch Records debut with the release of his new album, Nomad, last week, has unveiled the official video for the album track “Azamane Tiliade.” The video, directed by Reid Long, premiered via Rolling Stone yesterday and is now on YouTube; watch it here. Rolling Stone says Bombino and producer Dan Auerbach "recorded raw, dialed-up jams rooted in the electric-blues tradition of Bombino’s nomadic, desert-dwelling Tuareg people." Bombino has kicked off a month-long European tour and launches a four-night run in the Netherlands tonight.

Nomad, Bombino's Dan Auerbach-produced Nonesuch debut album released to critical acclaim earlier this week, has received a rave review from the Los Angeles Times. "Bombino and his band have released a killer document not only for fans of North African guitar music," writes Times critic Randall Roberts; "anyone who has ever appreciated a master player make magic on a Fender ... will find comfort in Bombino’s music." On Nomad, "simple wonders are celebrated with meandering joy."

Bombino's new album, Nomad, was featured on NPR's All Things Considered, which calls it "a landmark in African rock music." Reviewer Banning Eyre says producer Dan Auerbach "has done nothing to dilute Bombino's folksy, organic songs. Instead, he's given them sonic heft rarely heard on African guitar recordings and added a few tasteful Nashville touches, like lap steel guitar." Eyre concludes: "This is a seductive, friendly album. It doesn't pander with gimmicks or English lyrics, but it manages to bring a distant, Islamic culture unexpectedly close through the universal language of rock and roll."

Tuareg guitarist, singer, and songwriter Omara “Bombino” Moctar today releases his Nonesuch debut album, Nomad, produced by The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach. "Bombino’s playing is full of fast, stuttery, rhythmic hammering, coiling lines inside lines," says the New York Times. "But it also comes out in soft strums and battering single-note attacks, and its tone and phrasing have a flexible identity. In his playing, besides the sound of the pioneering Tuareg band Tinariwen, you might be reminded of Ali Farka Touré, Carlos Santana, Mark Knopfler, Jerry Garcia electric, Jerry Garcia acoustic. Bombino is never just one thing." Watch a short video about the album here.