DONSO - Donso (Comet)

It is easy to see why this confidently-executed and edgy album has the support of uber-cool personages such as Radio One’s Giles Peterson. Donso is the creation of French producer and DJ Pierre-Antoine Grison (aka Krazy Baldhead) who fashions a multi-layered electronic base for Malian singer Gédéon Papa Diarra, with Thomas Guillaume and Guimba Kouyaté adding threads of organic lustre on ngoni and guitar. Fans of Mamani Keita’s Electro Bamako and Yelema albums will know how the judicious application of crunchy pre-programmed beats can accentuate the repeated vocal motifs of Bambara phrasing, and Diarra’s child-like nasal tenor works in large part because of its remarkable similarity to his compatriot (Diarra lacks some of Keita’s presence, though, and so Mamani is very welcome as a backing vocalist to bolster a number of tracks).

Highlights include Mogoya, whose popping beats and squealing synths could be mistaken for a Missy Elliott/Timbaland production if it were not for the intricate buzz of ngoni working in and around it. On the propulsive Hunters a looped ngoni figure fades in and out of alternately thin and thick layers of snappy electronica. On Diya, the bassy hum of Guillaume’s donso n’goni predominates, pulling the rhythm in all sorts of interesting directions. Djandjigui is more guitar-driven, and thus most reflective of the band’s live sound. It also features Diarra’s best vocal - supple, confident, playful with the intricate use of melody. More of that next time round and Donso really will be close to an Electro Bamako II.

www.myspace.com/donso

TAMIKREST - Toumastin (Glitterhouse Records)

They’re keen this new generation of Kel Tamashek rockers, these self-styled spiritual sons of Tinariwen. Little more than a year after their atmospheric debut album Adagh comes this solid follow-up to consolidate the band’s place at the peak of the rockiest end of the desert blues outcrop.

The Tinariwen comparisons inevitably remain – from frizzy-haired Ibrahim-a-like lead singer Ousmane Ag Mossa, through lyrics that focus on the Touareg struggle for autonomy and nomadic freedom, to the vocal ululations and rhythmic undulations that add texture to ringing electric guitar lines. The Tamikrest template is clear, forceful electric guitar winding over a relaxed groove, with Mossa’s earnest vocals backed by the pulsing drone of rhythm and bass guitars (there should be a collective noun for this ubiquitous desert blues rumble – a tremor of Touareg guitars perhaps?).

The solemnity of the lead vocalist is uplifted by the exultant ululations of female backing singers, who also provide alluring responses to the lead singer on the funky love song Tarhamanine Assinegh and the twisting Tidit, a tune that seems to channel mid-70s American blues-rock as well as the best of Tamikrest’s fellow Touareg spiritual travellers Terakaft. Elsewhere, on the stripped back Aidjan Adaky, Mossa’s heartfelt vocal rides on a hypnotic wave of feedback and sustain.

It almost goes without saying – and indeed seems pretty much de rigeur at the moment to point out with each new Touareg release - that overall the album doesn’t break much new ground, although Tamikrest do absorb tinges of country- and blues-rock guitar into their sound. On the one occasion when they do try to cross-over into western rock terrain, on the album’s closer Dihad Tedoun Itran, the result is an incongruous clash between country rock, heavy metal guitar, viola and a 4/4 drumbeat. Most uncharacteristic for a band of subtle rhythmic pull, and a reminder perhaps that this music is indeed like the camels that are so often used as a metaphor to describe it - at its best taking steady steps forward, absorbing the sustenance of other styles when required but likely to stumble and fall if asked to move too quickly onto unfamiliar ground.

www.tamikrest.net

MADOU SIDIKI, AHMED FOFANA, ALEX WILSON - Mali Latino (Alex Wilson Records)

A slightly new angle on the familiar theme of blending West African music with Afro-Cuban and Latin styles. Hank Jones’s excellent Sarala and Dee Dee Bridgewater’s mostly successful Red Earth are probably the closest touchstones for this joyfully jazzy attack on Mande music, and Toumani Diabate’s Symmetric Orchestra is another touchstone for the marrying of traditional Malian styles with western jazz-derived sounds.

It’s Toumani’s brother Madou Sidiki Diabate who provides the kora fills for Mali Latino, with compatriot Ahmed Fofana on balafon and vocals, with Alex Wilson’s piano and Hammond organ completing a trio that forms the core of an album that veers between studied kora-jazz and rollicking, horn-driven dance numbers. It’s the big-band Bamako-meets-NY moments that are bound to draw most focus, where the trio are joined by various Malian guest vocalists (Doussouba Diabaté, Kandia Kouyaté and more) whilst bass, congas and all manner of brass instruments combine for some rip-roaring Mande-salsa. Opener Donkan is a fine example of this, the kora and balafon riffing between thick blasts of brass, and Bamako 2000 invokes 70s Latin soul, the watery warblings of Wilson’s Hammond organ to the fore (a marmite instrument if ever there was one) and balafon fitting snugly to the arrangement beneath swaying Mande harmonies.

Kansala is perhaps the best of the more reflective tracks, a showcase for Diabaté’s darting melodies, and Remercier Les Travaillers stops the album in its tracks to pay due respect to Kandia Kouyaté’s magnificence (presumably recorded some time before her recent bout of ill-health). Wilson’s piano is suitably respectful here, duetting tenderly with Diabaté kora.

However, experimental albums such as this usually have off-moments, and some of the kitchen-sink salsa moments on tracks like Ankaben can get wearing. And the sparse three-piece Voyage has some great moments but is spoilt by unnecessarily cocktail-bar piano effects from Wilson.

Not perfect by any means then, but on the whole the funky approach and spirit just about see Mali Latino through.

www.malilatino.com

MAH DAMBA - A L’ombre du Grand Baobab (Universal)

Mah Damba – the niece of the mighty Fanta Damba - resides in France, performing chiefly for the Malian community in Paris – but has a very rooted approach to her music, deploying her powerful, treacly voice to an organic ngoni, acoustic guitar, tama and djembe groove sweetened by two female backing singers. Think a Mandé version of Oumou Sangaré’s last album Seya, but with the kitchen sink taken out. The only slight drawback to an album that swings with no little charm throughout is the lack of any real standout tracks. Jolen perhaps sees the ensemble at its fullest, danceable best, with its cute, French-language hook of a chorus on top of a nicely chattering percussive backing. That tune contrasts well with the following track, Jugu Te Maa La, which finds Mah Damba intoning over a sparse ngoni and tama backing. This is the sound of a fine troupe of instrumentalists really enjoying themselves in support of a singer of grace and nuance. No surprise, really, given that it comprises pretty much all of Mah Damba’s immediate family.

www.budamusique.com

MAMADOU DIABATE - Courage (World Village)

Mamadou Diabaté’s previous album, the sparkling Douga Mansa, appeared from under the radar to earn a thoroughly deserved Grammy award in 2009. That highly accomplished kora-only affair placed emphasis on the re-interpretation of traditional tracks, and arguably overshadows much of the recent output of some of his more celebrated peers. Credit is due to the Malian for refusing to rest on his laurels by merely repeating the formula for the follow-up, instead returning to ensemble work with an accent on original compositions. The result of this Mamadou’s fifth album is therefore a more experimental, worldly recording, reflecting the US base of the artist and his cohorts. The song-writing is approached with the western audience preference for unobtrusively undulating melodies in mind (and why not?) and Mamadou’s interaction with the jazz scene, and his ability to mix sharp extemporisation with a light, silky touch remains engaging throughout, in particular through some thrilling instrumental conversations with balafon player Lansa Fode Diabaté. Kita Djely is the best of those, the balafon bubbly and bright, kora dancing in and out of shifting rhythmic patterns. Amongst other highlights, Abou Sissoko on ngoni chips in with some intriguing running ngoni lines on Humanity, and Mamadou is briefly back in solo, reflective mode on the beautiful Kora Journey. The result is arguably a slight dip in standard overall compared to its predecessor but it’s a worthwhile move for all that as Mamadou Diabaté continues to hone his considerable talent.