PIERRE BENSUSAN

When the world turned upside down last year, the French-Algerian DADGAD maestro was forced to abandon a mammoth North American tour. And yet his feeling of connectedness has only grown since – and so maybe, he reflects, his latest album “could have not come at a better time…”

- David Mead

Just before the world fully felt the impact of lockdown in 2020, Pierre Bensusan released a new album, Azwan, and embarked on a US tour to promote it. These best-laid plans were soon scuppered and Pierre was forced to make the dash back to France to rethink the immediate future. While few people are yet to hear it live, this album remains his best for years, with intense and evocative compositions delivered with a remarkable level of finesse.

Tell us about the concept of the album…

“The concept of Azwan came from observing bees, those solar insects working in the darkness together as one, and by observing flocks of birds flying and dancing together as one. It has been an inspiring symbolic representation of the continuum of music. When seeing Azwan written, it can evoke a place, a city or a mood, but when hearing it said out loud, it sounds like ‘as one’. I’ve been contemplating all the music from Azwan for years before actually recording it, taking time to allow all the notes to come together, as one.”

Your latest book, the dual-language Pierre Bensusan Guitar Collection, not only draws upon your latest album but also includes some pieces from your live repertoire, too. How did it come about?

“I’ve had this book in mind for a while. It was meant to be a collection of scores from the new album, but my Chinese publisher suggested I should include some pedagogical approaches. He also wanted to see a selection of pieces that are played at concerts, where the renditions could be different from the original versions. On the other hand, my manager in England, Dave Bevan, was expecting an introspective book about DADGAD. In the meantime, I released