With their new album and group Amor Y Powers, two guitar players Kid Congo Powers and Naïm Amor are looking to bring a different sound to the Tucson scene. 

They will celebrate the release of their new album “Tucson Safari” during a special event on Sunday, Nov. 16. 

Their band also features Miles Bartlett on the six-string electric bass and Chris Carlone on drums. 

Carlone, a filmmaker, also made the group’s music video for “Surf Sirens,” one of the songs from their new album. 

The project started with Amor, a Tucson-based musician who is originally from Paris. He has released music through both British and Japanese labels and composed for film soundtracks. His music appeared on the score for the PBS documentary “Precious Knowledge.” 

Powers is known for his work with post-punk groups such as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Gun Club and The Cramps. 

He recently has been working with the duo Juanita & Juan, which released an album this year called “Jungle Cruise.” He also performs with the group Pink Monkey Birds. 

Powers and Amor started working together during the height of the pandemic. 

Powers just moved to Tucson in 2019 after living on the East Coast since the early ‘90s, in places such as New York, Washington DC and New Haven, Conn.

Amor has been in Tucson since 1997. 

When Amor was 20 years old, she saw Powers perform in Paris with the Gun Club. They officially met during a show at the Owls Club right before COVID. 

Amor asked Powers to be part of his project. 

“I had met Naïm around town, and we knew each other’s music a bit. He reached out during the pandemic to work on a project, and I was very happy to do that. At that point, I still didn’t know a lot of people in town and was not super connected to the music community. So, it was a nice invitation in,” Powers said. 

Amor stayed busy during the height of COVID making three albums. This included an acoustic project with John Convertino of Calexico called “Correspondents.” 

Amor has also worked with Convertino on other projects. 

During the pandemic, Amor was able to work out of his home studio. The new album came from him experimenting with some new sounds. 

“I wanted to do something with drum machines and rockabilly guitars, which is something I didn’t typically do. I reconnected with some roots from when I was younger. I recorded a couple tracks. I thought it very exciting. Then it just clicked. I was like, ‘This guy must be bored as hell too. I’m gonna send it to him. If he doesn’t want to do it, no hard feelings or anything.’ To my surprise, Kid was like, ‘This is great. I want to put in some guitars and some vocals.’ Then, he sent me some ideas of songs, and it became an album,” Amor said. 

As part of the process, they sent their parts to each other digitally. 

“I recorded on a computer at home mostly. This is something I will do for a demo but not really for a recording usually. This was a special situation because even though we lived in the same town, we couldn’t meet up because of the lockdown. It was fun to experiment. My whole thing is experimenting. I’m someone who often doesn’t play the same thing twice. In a lot of the songs, I was reacting to what he was doing. In that way, it was very much a conversation and very much ping ponging and reacting,” Powers said. 

They only got together in person to record a couple of songs. 

Powers said it was unexpected that it turned into a whole album. Through the process, they got to know each other better. 

“It started out as just as a song or two. We were just having such a good time doing it that suddenly we had an album’s worth of stuff without even thinking about it or planning an album. It was just an idea that took off….It was funny because we didn’t know each other well. We were acquaintances, but we got along so well in playing music together, as well as personally,” Powers said. 

Amor said with the album, they wanted to really highlight the two guitars, which are having a dialogue with each other. 

They also used electronic drum machines and bass synthesizers on the album. 

Although they have different styles, Powers and Amor found that they complemented each other. 

“We are very much in tune with each other’s aesthetics. We play very differently and approach guitar playing very differently. That’s what I love about the collaboration is he does stuff I would never do. I don’t know if he would ever do what I do. That’s what made the conversation. I’m very much a person who, if you think of the Gun Club, mixed blues with punk, or with the Cramps, mixed psychedelic with rockabilly…. It’s like alchemy. It’s chemistry, making a magic out of what people might think is opposing. With us, it’s very much the same idea, that way of creating magic out of the soft and the abrasive, the pretty and the ugly or the sacred and the profane. These things really interest me in making music, and I saw that opportunity with this record,” Powers said. 

The album was not made with the band. Amor said that as they play the music live, it takes on a new form because of what the other musicians bring to it. 

“We have embraced the input of those people, although they didn’t record the album with us. We were like, ‘Transform it. Bring the goods,’” Amor said. 

Amor Y Powers Album Release
WHEN: Doors at 7 p.m., show at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 16
WHERE: Club Congress, 311 E. Congress Street, Tucson
COST: $12 in advance, $15 day of the show plus fees, 21 and older 
INFO: hotelcongress.com/venues/club-congress