Albala

Description

When you meet Samba Toure in person, he comes off as a soft-spoken man, a man who easily charms you with his abundant smile and optimistic gait. But on his third album, Albala, which in the Songhai language means "danger" or "risk," a weighted and at times defiant side of his personality emerges. To call Albala his darkest album is an understatement, but it is not a self-absorbed darkness. The cause of Toure's worry is the crashing world around him, and more specifically the troubles echoing out from his beloved northern Mali homeland. The last year has brought cataclysmic change and upheaval to northern Mali. The tragic details of this have been globally reported, so there is little point in sensationalizing them here. But the cumulative effect of these events on Samba's music seems palpable. There is an added gravity to his voice and his words, an additional sting to his electric guitar; there are sharper edges and more complex undertones in his musical arrangements. On "Fondora (Leave Our Road)" Samba sings with indignation: "I say, leave our road/All killers leave our road/Thieves leave our road/Looters, leave our road/Rapists, leave our road/Betrayers, leave our road." And on the haunting "Ago Djamba (Life Betrays Us)" Toure warns: "We do not all have the same opportunities/Here, nobody is born rich but we all have the same value/Life betrays us." As a band member, and valued collaborator of the late Malian legend Ali Farka Tour+-, Samba established a significant reputation, and through his first two solo albums Songhai Blues and Crocodile Blues (World Music Network) his confidence and musical prowess grew proportionately. But Albala is a new flash point. There is more power, there is more grit, the mood is deeper, and aptly, given the album's title, Toure takes more musical risks. Recorded at Studio Mali in Bamako in the autumn of 2012, Samba is joined by his regular band members Djime Sissoko (n'goni) and Madou Sanogo (congas, djembe) and guests such as the legendary master of the soku (a one-stringed violin) Zoumana Tereta and the fast-rising Malian neo-traditional singer Aminata Wassidje Traore. Additionally, Hugo Race (The Bad Seeds, Dirt music, Fatalists) contributes an array of subtle atmospherics on guitar and keyboards. On the opening song, "Be ki don," Samba sings: "Everybody welcomes Samba Toure" with an album as soulful and captivating as Albala, that might not be an over-statement. Review: Intense Malian Blues in Troubled Times - Taking on historical importance, now that peace has largely been restored to northern Mali, Samba Touré's 2012 album Albala [Danger] has underlying fear and a yearning for pluralistic unity and cooperation. Thus, the Malian style of blues is more intense here. The package notes provide the lyrics in English and French, and they tell thieves, killers, looters, rapists, betrayers, liars and extremists to leave; that all the ethnicities are children of Mali; that the people are tired of corruption and broken promises; that appearances hide the goodness within; that water is life (but too much will destroy); and that children should honor their elders. But there is also a song of celebration and one of romance. One track is an instrumental. Touré sings and plays guitars, calabsh and percussion, while Djimé Sissoko handles the traditional lutes, low and medium ngoni, Madou Sanogo plays congas and djembe drums, the one-string violin is bowed by Zoumana Tereta on three tracks, Hugo Race adds keyboards, and Aminata Wassidjé Traoré provides backing vocals. The mood throughout is dark, as expected with the destruction of shrines and loss of life and dignity by religious zealot warriors, so rampant in Africa and the Middle East these days. The music is powerful in its protest and sadness, as if the guitars and drums could stop the onslaught and bring reform and compassion by sheer will. As influenced in a feedback loop with their African-American blues musician cousins, these Malian blues are deep. 49 minutes. Review: Samba Toure' ... - Samba Toure' is a shaman, a African desert visionary, dancing on the windblown sands like a ghost from the past, and an emissary from an uncertain future. His muse is enlightenment, his focus is an intoxicating dark pointed blue's riff that spins and spirals, weaving in and out of twilight dust-devils, calling for attention, calling for justice, calling for understanding and bravery of the sort we have seldom seen here in America, where our troubles seem rather mundane and matter of fact. Alabala means "danger," and when Samba Toure' materializes, he splits the world, shimmers in the darkness, creating a psychedelic atmosphere, conjuring hypnotic grooves laced with inner connecting visions ... and the people don't just come to listen, they come to be healed, they come to dance, they come to dispatch hatred and to establish reason in a world gone wrong, a world where the AK47 challenges the guitar, and religion without reason challenges the moral being of anyone who's voice would stand opposed to sharia law, and the institution of belief. So to that end, Samba Toure' creates the musical magic of righteousness on the desert floor, and then vanishes into the night like a spirit before the heavily armed Toyota trucks of oppression arrive to find nothing but distant drums and fuzzed guitars hanging in the air like vanishing ghosts ... seen, but not seen, leaving shivers to run up and down your spine. This album should be part of your life for more reasons than you dare to consider. Review by Jenell Kesler