PLR Presents: MATINEE SHOW: Mdou Moctar (solo)

with Tashi Dorji

Sunday, February 15th, 2026

AyurPrana Listening Room - 312 Haywood Rd, Asheville, NC 28806

Doors 3PM || Event 4PM

Mdou Moctar

There is a beauty in listening to music made in the spirit of energetic transformation. When the sounds transform the air and the listener. This record transports the listener into the heart of the music of Mdou Moctar. The blending of intention and motivation creates a burst of sound that embraces and shakes and invites one to dance! It invites one to breathe. It invites one to be in solidarity with the music. It invites one to be in touch with the human condition. What does it mean to be free in these times? Can the world be liberated from the colonial mindstate that has caused such harm and mistrust? Can we mourn our losses yet build anew to form something more astounding, more fantastic? Funeral For Justice says we can.

A sound that carries weight makes an impact. A sound that carries time transcends time. We are not only listening to music but we are living through it. We are living with it. We are living in it. The artist sees history and makes poetry from it for the present. Mdou Moctar’s Funeral For Justice requests your presence. Show up open to the celebration of life, loved as it should be loved. Experience the exaltation and exuberance. The words speak of ascension, awareness, sorrow, apathy, knowing, and growth. The guitars speak of power, energy, jubilation, transcendency, immediacy, and tradition. The drums and percussion mark the pulse of now as well as a timeless dance that involves us all, as it did those that came before us. The wires that carry the message feel alive with fire and purpose, explosive with possibility. This “funeral” is an acknowledgment. This “funeral” is abundant. This “funeral” overflows into the street filled with dance. This “funeral” stretches late into the night, kicking up the dirt, with the hum of a generator, an ever present member of the rhythm section. This “funeral” is a clarion call for reason and a belief that change is possible.

So join Mdou Moctar in this funeral for justice, knowing rebirth is possible. A new justice is possible. With your voice, your heart, your dance, your stomp, a new justice is born. Mdou Moctar welcomes you with joy and open arms. Be here. Feel here and do, alongside this music. Don’t stand alone, join with others and do. Fight for liberation. Stand against oppression, alongside this music and do!

Tashi Dorji

Tashi Dorji is a Bhutanese-born, Asheville-based experimental guitarist whose fiercely intuitive improvisations have carved out a unique space in the contemporary avant-garde.His expansive discography includes deeply felt solo works like Stateless (2020) and We Will Be Wherever the Fires Are Lit (2024), and his forthcoming electric album Low Clouds Hang, This Land Is on Fire (2026) on Drag City. Dorji is one half of Manas, the dynamic duo with drummer Thom Nguyen, and a founding member of the free jazz trio KUZU, alongside saxophonist Dave Rempis and drummer Tyler Damon. His collaborators span a wide spectrum: from Mette Rasmussen, Susie Ibarra, Efrim Manuel Menuck, Alex Zhang Hungtai, John Dieterich, Audrey Chen and Joe McPhee to more recent partnerships with Tony Buck, Terrie Ex, Andy Moor,bassist John Edwards, and drummer Steve Noble. Across his solo and group projects, Dorji’s playing, rooted in alternate tunings, prepared guitar, and spontaneous gesture, articulates an aesthetic of resistance, deep listening, and collective transformation.

All ages