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CD Review
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Relix, CD Review >>
Malian guitarist and singer Boubacar Traore has led
many lives. Once a renowned soccer player, he had a national hit in the '60s, after which he more or less disappeared to raise a family and work as a tailor and a farmer, only to be rediscovered in the 1980s (to the surprise of those who thought he was dead). In his mid-'60s now.Traore's latest is filled with magnificent and stately guitar lines, plucked in rapid bursts or in gentle rolling patterns. The lines slide perfectly along the contours of the kamele ngoni (a Malian harp), or are picked up and expertly mimicked by harmonica. Traditional melodic pieces descend and resolve satisfyingly in tow rumbling bass notes. Swishing calabash shakers and rimshot-like percussion articulate the offbeats of the steady triplets. The sparse instrumentation changes up slightly occasionally; accordion supplies a syncopated reggae-ish pulse on one track and balafon on two. With so much Malian music to sift through these days, Kongo Magni is worth finding.
- Jonn Adamian
11/01/05
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