Adibar

It’s odd now to recall that initial responses in the West to Ali Farka Toure’s Songhai guitar music – 25 years ago now – focused on its supposed similarity to John Lee Hooker’s electric blues. Nowadays Western listeners are more likely to simply enjoy it as what it is. Trilby-sporting singer-guitarist Mamadou Kelly is of Bamana and Fula heritage – how he ended up with the Irish-sounding surname isn’t explained but he’s part of the music clique in Niafunke that produced Toure and Afel Bocoum, and he’s spent most of his life playing in their backing groups. His gently swinging acoustic grooves recall Bocoum’s music with his Alkibar band, but on a more intimate scale. And they don’t, it has to be said, sound notably bluesy.

There’s a warm, unaffected spontaneity to the proceedings, with Kelly’s voice – less strident and nasal than Toure’s and Bocoum’s – sounding out over a propulsive and nicely earthy mesh of guitar, njarka (monochord fiddle) and djourkel (lute) underpinned by bass and calabash.

When Kelly sings in Bamana the music has a southern Malian flavour, with shades of Wassoulou hunters’ music. It’s more melodious than the other tracks, but a touch more ordinary. The best songs, such as the two opening tracks ‘Sehenon Men’ and ‘Mahindjene,’ have a stark, incantatory feel, typical of northern Mali, with Kelly’s declamations ghosted by the scraping fiddle of the njarka.