
Farees—seen here in the studio with his Danelectro 12-string—cut his teeth playing with iconic Tuareg group Tinariwen.
Bucking the “neocolonialism” of World Music, this guitar pluralist brings explosive scope and skill to Tuareg-rooted playing on his new album, which includes original Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli.
Farees’ new album, Blindsight, opens with a blistering cover of “Hey Joe.” And although the guitarist is heavily influenced by Hendrix and delivers a nearly spot-on rendition of the iconic solo in the middle of the song, he’s really displeased by the comparisons being bandied about in attempts to describe his own guitar prowess.
“It really pisses me off when they say ‘the new Jimi Hendrix,’ or ‘here’s the next Hendrix,’ or ‘the Jimi Hendrix of the Sahara’,” says Farees, who is of Tuareg and German/Italian heritage. “There’s only one Jimi Hendrix. It’s promotional bullshit, just to attract attention. World music is really a neocolonial system. It’s based on exoticism to this day, and so they always try to manufacture this exotic image—you see a person of color with an electric guitar, and you go, ‘Jimi Hendrix,’ which is racist. So, yeah, I don’t like the way Jimi is used. It’s profiting off the image of Jimi to promote someone else.”
Farees’ strong, articulate character permeates his musical output and vision. He’s a fiercely independent artist who wants to dictate his own terms within the music industry. And he’s fervently committed to dismantling the thinking around the neocolonial power dynamics that dictate much of capitalist society—check out his “Maneefesto” at farees.com for his incisive worldview. Regarding the music industry, he’s challenging what he calls “the age of shallowness and appearance.” As such, his music and lyrics are inextricably linked to the ideals and values that define him as a human being. There’s no separating the performer from the person. “I’m invested in societal change because I’m a musician. It’s as simple as that—it’s natural,” he proclaims.
FAREES feat. LEO NOCENTELLI of THE METERS - The Melting (Official Music Video)
On the bouncy and funky “The Melting,” Farees sets down his guitar and lets the Meters’ original guitarist, the legendary Leo Nocentelli, handle all the guitar parts.
When it comes to songcraft, Farees grounds himself in his traditional Tuareg heritage. For the uninitiated, the Tuareg people are a large nomadic ethnic group that principally inhabit a vast area of the Sahara. “It was a huge empire and, being nomadic, they were influenced by many different cultures, so you have a music and poetry style that’s very diverse,” he explains. “If you listen to traditional stuff from Timbuktu and the Niger River in West Africa, it really sounds like the blues. And since millennia Tuaregs had rap and spoken word. We had all of that in Africa.”
Farees started out playing guitar professionally as part of the Saharan music scene in the bands Tinariwen and Terakaft. His first record, Mississippi to Sahara (released under the name Faris in 2015), assayed the traditional rural blues of Mississippi through the lens of a Tuareg style. It is an unequivocal tour de force of mostly solo guitar playing. The album caught the ears of Taj Mahal and Ben Harper, who quickly embraced both his musical ambition and his social mission. And even though it was a low-budget project, recorded in just a couple days, Mississippi to Sahara contains all the hallmarks of the highly rhythmic approach that would come to define his guitar playing, producing, and songwriting on future albums.
In 2020, he released Border Patrol and Both Sides of the Border, two collections of genre-hopping, guitar-heavy protest songs, including Border Patrol’s “Y’all Don’t Know What’s Going On,” a collaboration with U.S.-based indie-rock band Calexico. Drawing on his own experience of being profiled, arrested, and detained during an American tour, his spoken-word poetry on Border Patrol harks back to the late-’60s protest traditions of artists like Bob Marley and Hendrix. Farees employs spoken word throughout much of his music and says that this came out of necessity. “I have too much to say for just standard lyrics,” he chuckles.
“World music is really a neocolonial system. It’s based on exoticism to this day, and so they always try to manufacture this exotic image.”
Farees’ recent release, Blindsight, continues his genre-bending, socially responsive musical trajectory. Through bombastic funk, conscious but raucous hip-hop, and psychedelic blues, Blindsight affirms the signature “wall of groove” production style he is becoming known for. “I guess that’s my African ancestry,” he says. “Rhythm always comes first. I always lay down a wall of different rhythm tracks on different instruments—drums, bass, keyboards, guitars, or percussion—and then, once I have this wall of groove underneath, every melody comes alive. That’s the way I think as a producer.” A prime example is “The Melting,” featuring Leo Nocentelli from the original Meters line-up on guitar. The song is like a jigsaw puzzle of cascading rhythms and contrapuntal melodies—including a busy and melodic bass line—that coalesce with astonishing fluidity.
The Meters are another of the Farees’ big Western influences, so it was quite an honor to have Nocentelli onboard. “We met online,” recalls Farees. “I asked him, ‘Do you feel like you could play some guitar on one of my tracks?’ And he was like, ‘Sure, man.’ So, it was a dream come true for me. Now it’s more of a spiritual connection—we became like brothers.” Nocentelli performed all the guitar parts on “The Melting.” “I didn’t touch the guitars, specifically to leave room for him,” says Farees.
At the time of this interview, Farees had just played with Nocentelli’s band at the 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in support of the Meters guitarist’s own much-heralded, recently released lost 1971 solo album, Another Side. Nocentelli says he was drawn to Farees because he’s a unique person with unique ideas: “His music is like a mixture of dialects and musical interpretations from various parts of the world, and I like that.”
After meeting Leo Nocentelli online, Farees asked the original Meters’ guitarist to play a feature track on Blindsight. The famed 6-stringer said yes and handles all the guitar parts on “The Melting.” This year, Farees joined Nocentelli’s band at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
Photo by Joseph A. Rosen
For “The Melting,” Nocentelli used a Gibson ES-335, direct through the board. “I’m old school,” he says. “I like the direct sound if I’m tracking a clean sound, especially rhythm. When you hear Jimmy Nolen with James Brown, the guitar is clean. There’s no distortion or anything like that. Al McKay from Earth, Wind & Fire, too—his rhythms were sparkling clean, and I try to duplicate that.”
Clearly, Farees isn’t content to be defined solely by his guitar playing, good as it may be. Collaboration, whether with Nocentelli or Calexico, is a driving force in his life. “I love to create,” he attests. “The guitar was my first instrument, but then I had to explore, and I think that’s how it’s going to be with me. I just love sound.” On “Fuck You, I’m Black,” he even plays the banjo, tuned in a Tuareg style. “It’s tuned the same way the Tuareg tune their lutes. Tuaregs have nine or 10 different [open] tunings based on the songs. Probably the easiest one, and the one we use most, is the low ‘E’—you tune it up to ‘G.’ And then you play in ‘G,’ and you have all kinds of scales and stuff to do.” [A typical Tuareg open G tuning is G–A–D–G–B–E.]
But Farees points out that he is a completely self-taught guitarist and doesn’t know anything about Western music theory. “I don’t know what notes I’m playing,” he admits. “I don’t count the rhythms. I just do everything by instinct, so there’s a lot of mystery to it. Most of the things I do, I don’t know how I’m doing them. I just do them. I guess it comes from above, as they say.”
Farees’ Gear
Seen here tracking bass parts, Farees says he wrote most of Blindsight at the keyboard.
Photo by Rafaelle Serra
Guitars
- Numerous customized Squier Strats with Q pickups
- ES-style with vintage-type Q humbuckers
- Squier Starcaster
- Greco 1978 triple-humbucker LP copy
- Greco 1979 S-style
- Danelectro 12-string electric
Amps
- Vox Pathfinder 10
- Custom 25W head based on Fender Bronco circuit
- Replica JTM45 head
- 1963 GEM Deluxe combo
- 1973 Davoli Tuono combo
- Custom 4x12 cabinet with Celestion Greenbacks
Effects
- Custom-made Fuzz pedals
- Two custom-made Univibe-style pedals (one has more output and a stronger preamp section)
- ’70s Jen Phase Shifter
- Rocktron Banshee Talkbox
Wahs
- Custom-made or modded wah pedals
- 1966 Vox Clyde McCoy wah
- Various ’70s Italian-made wahs
Strings and Picks
- GHS Strings (.010–.038)
- Planet Waves Medium 0.70 mm picks
He also doesn’t ascribe to a single playing technique. “I play every style—fingerpicking, picks,” he attests. “Usually, for a pick, I use the butt of the pick, not the front. It gives me more speed and fattens the sound.” And when it comes to gear, Farees makes sure that his instrument choices align with his thinking—a kind of a practice-what-you-preach methodology. “People are starting to watch what an artist says and does,” he explains. “It has to align with what you say. I’d rather go to a small artisan that produces quality stuff by hand. That’s why I endorse Q Pickups. For a set of pickups, the most pricey are maybe $150. They don’t charge you for the brand. No bullshit and real quality. That’s what I’m about.
“The sound is part of the song for me, so it’s really important. I work a lot on my sound,” he continues, explaining that he finds “incredible sounds using incredibly cheap gear” and cites the rhythm guitar track on “Hey Joe.” “That’s the Vox Pathfinder 10, and it’s an awesome amp. I don’t know how they did that circuit, but it sounds like a big Marshall amp, and it’s just a transistor, super-small practice amp.” He mostly plays Squier guitars, as well as a pair of ’70s Greco guitars from Japan. “They’re incredible,” he says. “The Japanese craftsmanship in the ’70s was incredible. If you do a blind test with a vintage ’68 Strat, you probably won’t notice any difference.” For the outro solo on “Hey Joe,” he used an unnamed vintage Italian-made phase shifter and a custom-made JTM45-replica head with an Orange bass cab. “I love bass cabs, rather than guitar cabs, because they add more fat to my tone.”
“I love bass cabs, rather than guitar cabs, because they add more fat to my tone.”
Farees’ values are reflected in all aspects of his music. He’s put in his time hustling to set up his own label and distribute his records worldwide, and feels that he’s now a truly independent musician. Farees says that his 2020 release Border Patrol was finished for two-and-a-half years before it came out as he prepared the infrastructure needed to be truly free of record companies and the hierarchy that goes along with that side of the business. “I was contacted by major labels, but they wanted to censor me and change my whole persona,” he explains. “They’ve tried to change my song titles, change the album titles. I wanted a double LP, and they were like, ‘No. It has to be a single LP.’”
The music and the message are important to Farees, not marketing or sales concerns. “I make music because I really believe in good music and good values,” he explains. “It’s about bringing something good and something new to the table, and not doing what everybody else is doing or imitating. I think that’s an artist’s responsibility. Not that you have to revolutionize or change everything—just bring your own thing to the table.”
Blindsight
Blindsight opens with a blistering, funky version of “Hey Joe,” but Farees rejects the idea of using Hendrix to self-aggrandize: “I don’t like the way Jimi is used. It’s profiting off of the image of Jimi to promote someone else, and it’s bullshit.”
Farees - HEY JOE (Isolated Guitar)
PG Exclusive: Check out the isolated guitar tracks from "Hey Joe" off Farees' new album, Blindsight.
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Super versatile EQ. Punchy and powerful in tracking situations. Surprisingly sweet clean tones. Useful DI features. Fun!
Midrange focus comes at expense of airiness. Push button switches can be noisy.
$299
Peavey Joshua Homme Decade Too
The punchy and potent practice amp that propelled many classic QOTSA tracks proves surprisingly versatile thanks to a flexible EQ section and cool clean tones.
One of the reasons classic Queens of the Stone Age tracks leap from radio speakers like striking vipers is because Josh Homme is a true recording artist—an individual that chases and realizes the sounds in his mind by any means necessary. When you play the 10-watt, solid-state Peavey Decade Too with Homme and QOTSA in mind you understand why the original Peavey Decade became integral to that process. It’s feral, present, nasty, bursting with punky attitude, and when tracked and mixed with a booming bass, sounds positively menacing. But it’s also a lovely clean jangle machine that will lend energy to paisley psych pop or punch to a Bakersfield Telecaster solo.
Objectively speaking, if you’ve played an ’80s Peavey practice amp before, you will know many of these sounds well. (Many of my own early amplified experiences came courtesy of a borrowed Backstage 30, so they are etched deep in my marrow and consciousness.) Like any small amp with a little speaker and cabinet, it’s marked by an inherent, pronounced midrange honk—no doubt, an ingredient that Homme found appealing in his original Decade. The saturation is thick and surprisingly dimensional. But it’s the 3-band EQ, with added bass and top-end boost buttons, that really extends the versatility of the Decade Too. In many contexts, it made a cherished vintage Fender Champ sound like a one-trick pony. The Decade Too may not excel at cooking-tubes-style distortion, but in terms of punch, clarity, and versatility in the studio environment, it delivers the goods.
Peavey Josh Homme Decade Too 10-watt 1 x 8-inch Combo Amplifier
Decade Too 1x8" 10w Combo AmpTwo guitars, two amps, and two people is all it takes to bring the noise.
The day before they played the coveted Blue Room at Third Man Records in Nashville, the Washington, D.C.-based garage-punk duo Teen Mortgage released their debut record, Devil Ultrasonic Dream. Not a bad couple of days for a young band.
PG’s Chris Kies caught up with guitarist and vocalist James Guile at the Blue Room to find out how he builds the band’s bombastic guitar attack.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Devilish Dunable
Guile has been known to use Telecasters and Gretsches in the past, but this time out he’s sticking with this Dunable Cyclops DE, courtesy of Gwarsenio Hall—aka Jordan Olds of metal-themed comedy talk show Two Minutes to Late Night. Guile digs the Dunable’s lightness on his shoulders, and its balance of high and low frequencies.
Storm Warning
What does Guile like about this Squier Cyclone? Simple: its color. This one is also nice and easy on the back, and Guile picked it up from Atomic Music in Beltsville, Maryland.
Crushing It
Guile also scooped this Music Man 410-HD from Atomic, which he got just for this tour for a pretty sweet deal. It runs alongside an Orange Crush Bass 100 to rumble out the low end.
James Guile’s Pedalboard
The Electro-Harmonix Micro POG and Hiwatt Filter Fuzz MkII run to the Orange, while everything else—a DigiTech Whammy, Pro Co Lil’ RAT, and Death by Audio Echo Dream 2—runs to the Music Man. A TC Helicon Mic Mechanic is on board for vocal assistance, and a TC Electronic PolyTune 3, Morley ABY, and Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 3 Plus keep the ship afloat.
Ernie Ball, the world’s leading manufacturer of premium guitar and bass strings, is proud to announce the release of the Pino Palladino Signature Smoothie Flats, the newest innovation in flatwound bass strings.
Developed in collaboration with legendary bassist Pino Palladino, these signature sets are engineered to deliver an ultra-smooth feel and a rich, warm tone that’s as versatile as it is expressive. Available in two gauges—Extra Light (38–98) and Medium (43–108)— Smoothie Flats are crafted with a precision-polished cobalt alloy ribbon for low tension, flexible playability, and deep vintage-inspired sound.
Ernie Ball: Pino Palladino Signature Smoothie Flats Bass Strings
Product Features:
- Precision polished for an ultra-smooth feel
- Cobalt alloy ribbon winding for a rich, deep sound
- Flexible, low-tension design for superior playability
- Trusted by Pino Palladino for studio and live performance
Pino Palladino Signature Smoothie Flats bass strings are available at Ernie Ball dealers worldwide.
Cool compression profile that yields blooming and nasty fuzz with fangs. Simple. Excellent value!
Not a ton of variation in the fuzz’s simple controls.
One big, bad, and very boss no-frills fuzz.
On the surface, fuzz is an almost barbarian concept—a nasty sound that’s easy to grasp in our imaginations. But contrast David Gilmour’s ultra-creamy Big Muff sounds with James Gurley’s free and visceral fuzz passages from Big Brother and the Holding Company’s Cheap Thrillsand you remember that two different fuzzes, in the hands of two different players, can speak very different languages. The latter artist concerns us here because Gurley did his work with a Jordan Boss Tone, which is the inspiration for the Ananashead Spirit Fuzz.
Ananashead’s Pedro Garcia has a knack for weirder 1960s fuzzes. HisMeteorite silicon Fuzzrite clone, for instance, is a knockout. This take on the two-transistor Boss Tone is equally thrilling, and genuinely idiosyncratic when it runs at full tilt. It exhibits tasty inherent compression, and transient notes ring out as pronounced and concise before blooming into full viciousness—a quality that shines when paired with neck-position humbuckers (and which probably made the original circuit appealing to Spirit’s Randy California, another 1960s Boss Tone devotee). That tone profile gives the Spirit Fuzz meatiness that stands out among ’60s-style two-transistor circuits, and the sense of mass, combined with the pedal’s intrinsic focus, makes it superb for tracking. The Spirit loves humbuckers, which coax real sweetness from the circuit. But it was just as happy to take a ride with a Jaguar bridge pickup and an old Fender Vibrolux with the reverb at 10. Sounds painful, right? On the contrary, it was one of the most haunting fuzz sounds I can remember playing.