Djourou

For this, his 11th album, the Paris-based kora maestro Ballaké Sissoko collaborated with a clutch of genre-diverse French and African artists. It’s a fitting progression in a career devoted to exploring the range of the 21-string West African harp, from Ballaké’s professional origins in the National Orchestra of Mali (of which his late father, the great Djelimady Sissoko, was a stalwart) through projects with sitarists, flamenco guitarists and a wildly successful pairing with French cellist and bassist Vincent Segal – who, with clarinettist Patrick Messina, graces ‘Jeu Sur La Symphonie Fantastique’, a nuanced instrumental that is worth the album price alone.

There’s much to love here: ‘Guelen’ finds the allegedly retired Salif Keita quivering mightily over kora notes placed just so; kora player Sona Jobarteh proves a fine sparring partner on ‘Djourou’; ‘Kadidja’, a slow-paced song featuring the pure, breathy vocals of label-mate Piers Faccini, is utterly lovely. Less effective is a jarring spoken word musing with the band Feu! Chatterton and Camille’s soft and deliberately repetitive wordplay on ‘Kora’ begs variety. Of the wild cards, it is first single ‘Frotter Les Mains’ with French-Malian rapper Oxmo Puccino, a meditative and often beautiful musing on shared roots, that vindicates Ballaké’s questing leaps of faith.