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Artist Review
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Muzikifan, Artist Review >>
I was thinking the great fountain of inspiration from the Sahara sands was starting to dry up, maybe with the arrival of Al Qaeda in Africa in their dunes. (The sudden enthronement of Tinariwen as the hottest thing to come out of Africa also coincided with them becoming a watered-down version of their former selves. Now there are dozens of these Saharan jam bands, it seems, whanging away like the beturbaned Dead.) But my fears were groundless and here we have the latest in a glittering galaxy of musical statements that are timeless: Modern yet grounded in an antiquity that predates Noah. (Depending on who you are listening to, the great flood was not that long ago, but something has always bugged me: If the water reached to the tops of the mountains -- say 6000 feet -- where did it all go when the "waters receded"? Did God pull a plug at the bottom of the ocean?) Sub Pop is taking a gamble by releasing this only in iTunes right now -- the physical disc will come out in February to coincide with a North American tour. Ngoni Ba is a group of multiple ngoni players, including Harouna Samake on kamale ngoni and Bassekou himself on the bass instrument. Amy Sacko, the vocalist, is married to leader Bassekou Kouyate. Apart from the Western pop sheen brought by Taj Mahal, Clapton and others, Kouyate has also frequently dueted with Toumani Diabaté the celebrated kora player, and he appears here again. But its the ngoni that takes centre stage. Kouyate had never seen a banjo, the modern descendant of the ngoni, until he attended a banjo pickers convention in Tennessee and was urged on stage. Now Bela Fleck is touring with the group to bring that dueling banjo intensity to the set. Kouyate has played with Toumani Diabaté in an instrumental trio, in the Symmetric Orchestra & with Ali Farka Toure. Ali's son Vieux guests here, as do griot vocalist Kasse Mady Diabaté, plus there's a stellar spike fiddle player Zoumana Tereta playing his soku, which is a horse-hair fiddle 12/01/09 >> go there
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