Description
Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate – World Circuit
CD review by Warren Fahey
Many years ago, in a former life, I distributed the World Circuit label in Australia for about a decade.
It was one of many labels issuing contemporary music from Africa but it was also the tastiest.
The brainchild of producer and label owner Nick Gold, the label has released some of the most wonderfully sensitive and evocative recordings of what we now call ‘world music’ – although I now find this description totally inadequate, especially when, like this production, you are hearing two master musicians.
These artists and this, their last recording session together, are comparable to any jazz, classical, pop or whatever superstar yet they produce music on one of the world’s oldest traditional instruments, the kora, alongside that relatively new instrument, guitar. (not that Ali Farka Toure plays his guitar like a guitar!).
The late Ali Farka Toure will be familiar to some readers through his previous award-winning recordings, particularly his ‘Talking Timbuktu’ with Ry Cooder.
This is Farka Toure and Diabate’s second album together and I thoroughly recommend it and the previous album, ‘”in the Heart of the Moon’, which shows real music does sometimes win, being awarded a Grammy Award for best world music recording in 2008.
Both albums are a magical journey taking the listener into an ethereal space where the music shines, twists and summersaults – all with a musical grace that is divine.
If anything, this is a far more gentle journey than the previous album.
This CD is highly recommended for all those who have tired of world music and need their batteries recharged and inspired.
