Mali overdrive

Description

A listening to the hypnotic blues that make up Mali Overdrive, it's hard to believe that this is a debut album. Yet it's true: as a consequence of the war in Mali, Anansy Cissé was forced to abandon his studio in Diré (Tombouctou region), where he recorded local musicians, and move to Bamako; there, the percussionist Philippe Sanmiguel, amazed by his voice and guitar playing, persuaded him to record for the first time his own music. Surrounded by Zoumana Tereta on sokou (one-string violin) and a very good rhythm section, Cissé can finally showcase his art. Full of electricity and vibrating with sincerity, the album is a perfect testament to that. Anansy is a bit like a sponge that absorbs everything he hears, Peul music, Songhai, rock, pop, and it comes out in his music without being able to precisely define how or what part of such or such influence it is, confides one of the protagonists of the album. To see in him a cross between Bombino and Bassekou Kouyaté would be reductive, but he certainly belongs to that same category of musicians, with this desire to move forward, to dare — isn't the title of the CD a reflection of that? The fine and demanding mix that highlights the ten tracks says nothing else, whether on Aigouna with its prominent bass, or in the different layers of Seckou Amadou, a track that this son of a marabout dedicates to the founder of the Peul empire of Macina, incorporating an excerpt from a speech by Nelson Mandela. (excerpts from Inrockuptibles and RFI reviews).