Bamako Nights: Live at Bar Bozo 1995

The late Lobi Traoré’s reputation as the wild maverick of the Malian electric guitar is based less on his recorded output than on breathless accounts of rowdy all-nighters at Bamako’s grungy Bar Bozo and a handful of performances in the West. I remember a careering, insanely over-amplified event in the Barbican foyer, after which he tried to get off with my wife (no hard feelings, wherever you are). His albums meanwhile, though often very good, stop just short of the full-on, going-for-the-jugular energy you’d hope for.

However, Bamako Nights should be the album to give you the real Lobi grease, having been recorded live at the Bar Bozo in its mid-90s pomp, and it doesn’t disappoint. The recording is so vivid you feel like you’re on stage – if there actually was a stage there, that is – with Lobi’s incandescent, reverb-laden guitar lines cutting into the muggy air. Things start slowly, with the lengthy, reflective ‘Ni Tugula Mogo mi Ko’ building up via sprawling solos. There’s a sense of the band holding back before they kick in hard and fast on the fourth track, ‘Sigui Nyongon Son Fo.’ The tempo goes up and down before the steaming finale ‘Bamaku N’tichi.’ Lobi’s terse, nasal voice makes him sound at times like a younger, punkier Ali Farka Toure, but rather than sparseness, he and his band deliver lunging grooves that crash on into the Bamako night. Get in there.