During all the Kuduro hype started up by Benn loxo contributor, Boima, several people noted that French electro musician and producer Frédéric Galliano has been really active on the Kuduro scene lately. His MySpace page is full of music from his latest project, Kuduro Sound System. (Love that picture of him arm wrestling Dog Murras.)

Galliano’s interest in African music is wide-ranging, and definitely not limited to Kuduro nor Angolan music. He’s traveled and recorded all over the continent and other parts of the globe, including several solid projects with his own label, Frikyiwa, and its mobile studio in Senegal, Guinea and Mali.

This morning I dug-out one of Galliano’s Frikyiwa projects from Senegal, Ali Boulo Santo. This Dakarois musician, son of respected kora player, Soundioulou Cissoko, is part of that new generation of Senegalese musicians sticking to their acoustic, native instruments and then remixing the results.

Ali Boulo Santo – Dame Fall

Taffetas is a project put together by two Swiss-French musicians, Marc Liebeskind and Christophe Erard, and Guinean kora player, Ibrahima Galissa. Recently Galissa was replaced by his cousin, Dakarois kora player turned Swiss native, Chérif Nana Cissokho. Burkinabé singer, Fatoumata Dembélé, also recently joined the group adding a permanent vocalist to the mix. (Francesca Cassio does the vocals on today’s track from their first album.)

The mix of guitar, bass, kora and vocals on both their releases is crisp, smart and never overdone. I’ve been listening to their tunes on repeat lately as I tread water in Februrary paperwork at the office.

Incidentally, the group’s new singer, Dembélé, was discovered in 1998 at a music festival in Bobo-Dioulasso, a surprisingly pretty city in Burkina Faso. It’s the country’s second largest city and generally known as its cultural capital. I spent some time there a few years ago. After a long, hot bus ride through semi-desert, Bobo and its tree-lined avenues springs up out of nowhere. A great place to stop if you’re on your way to Ouaga for FESPACO or the SNC.

I’ll most likely be at one of the Taffetas shows on the 28th or 29th of March at the Sattelit in Paris. Find me at the bar and Benn loxo will buy you a round.

Taffetas – Taffetas

Hey Jozef, thanks for your comment on the last post. You woke me up. It’s been a while since I last wrote – sorry, people. I’ve been busy sorting out a move, working, traveling and fighting back the cold, Parisian rain. If any of you live up around Canal Saint Martin I’m your new neighbour. And hey, if you live in Amsterdam keep an eye out for me this weekend.

I was at a Sarah Harmer and Kelly Joe Phelps show last night. After the show we bumped into Ms. Harmer at the back of the club so I introduced myself and told her the story about how I spent many hours in a car with my Kenyan friend, Aki, listening to her album, I’m A Mountain, on repeat. It was the only disc we had with us at the start of the trip aside from a Kenyan hiphop mix featuring the Xplastaz. I’ll forever associate the tunes on that album with Aki rapping in Swahili, the German autobahn and large crowds of red-faced English and Dutch football fans.

Anyway, all the acoustic guitar put me in the mood for some solid strumming so I dug up a great disc of Malian kora and flamenco, Songhai Vol. 2. The album features the new flamenco stars, Ketama, and Toumani Diabaté. The fusion of guitar, Gypsy-Spanish singing, kora and other Malian elements works wonderfully. I prefer this second volume to the first since I find the recordings much richer.

The disc’s title, Songhai, refers to the Songhai empire. It was one of Africa’s largest and most powerful empires that, at its height in the 16th century, spanned from modern-day Senegal all the way to central Nigeria.

For today’s post I picked my favourite two tracks plus a third, De Jerez à Mali, since it brings back great memories of sipping sherry on a hot day in Jerez this summer with blue and Annie.

…plus a couple bonuses to add some context.

Ketama, Toumani Diabaté & José Soto – De la Noche a la Manana
Ketama, Toumani Diabaté & José Soto – Sute Monebo
Ketama, Toumani Diabaté & José Soto – De Jerez à Mali
X-Plastaz – Msimu kwa msimu
Sarah Harmer – I Am Aglow

Hey, sorry I haven’t been writing lately. May is busy with all the special events at work, visitors to Paris and terasse apéros. That plus a rather depressing computer crash. Didn’t lose any music but my photos took a slight beating. Oh well, I’m over it. And none of this means that I’ve been slacking on concerts or music. Lots of good stuff to share your way in the next few weeks.

I went to the Toumani Diabaté and The Symmetric Orchestra show at Cabaret Sauvage in Paris last night. While it was a touch heavy on the extended Mande shout-out ballads, the show was great overall. I like Cabaret Sauvage as a venue, even if the acoustics aren’t the best. Good crowd, easy access to the bar, enthusiastic performance. I’d never seen Toumani Diabaté live, too, so I was in a great mood.

Toumani Diabaté is the last artist to record with Ali Farka Touré before his death and was at his deathbed three hours before he passed away. He told us last night that the last album Touré ever listened to was the Symmetric Orchestra. That’s some pretty serious praise, West African musical master-wise. That and Diabaté and Touré’s last release, In The Heart of The Moon, was one of my favourite West African releases in the last couple years. Everything this guy touches is gold as far I’m concerned.

Before the release of Boulevard de l’Indépendence, The Symmetric Orchestra had never played outside of Africa as a group. It’s comprised of several well-known solo artists from across West Africa. If you’re ever in Bamako they play every Friday at the Hogon. Was anyone else there?

Two songs today picked by none other than my brother, Ben, who’s visiting Paris this week. Africa Challenge is a Senegalese-Salsa styled “fetish” piece, the second a slow-jam about “accepting death as we do birth.”

Both of today’s tracks are off the recent Symmetric Orchestra album available all over the place.

Toumani Diabaté & The Symmetric Orchestra – Africa Challenge
Toumani Diabaté & The Symmetric Orchestra – Tapha Niang

Can anyone help with these requests by some Benn loxo listeners?

Xalam – Ade
West African Cosmos albums
Wato Sita

Anyway, not much time today to write, but have a listen to some Kandia Kouyaté off her latest album, Biriko. Today’s track features some nice sax by Nicholas Gueret to mix things up a bit.

Mande, Mali, griot, beautiful; you know the deal if you’ve been reading this blog for a while.

Kandia Kouyaté – M’Bensara