Donso

With the West being so thoroughly saturated with Malian music of late, it's becoming increasingly rare to hear something sufficiently singular and different enough to be head-turning. The French/Malian four-piece Donso – guitarist and ngoni (lute) player Guimba Kouyate, percussionist and ngoni player Thomas Guillaume, vocalist Gedeon Papa Diarra and keyboardist, programmer and driving force Pierre-Antoine Grison (aka dance music producer Krazy Baldhead) – are pushing the envelope. Here pop, jazz and electronic textures vie and blend with traditional rootsy Malian rhythms in bold, respectful and progressive ways. It's an experiment that could have failed quite spectacularly; that it works is testament to the group's musical empathy and forward-thinking aesthetic.

As a dance music producer, Grison is used to following creative paths way off the conventional track. Neither is he afraid of offending purists, which can only be a good thing. Bolstered by like-minded contributions from Kouyaté, whose rock guitar peppers the vibrant ‘Djanjigui’, and Guillaume on the large, ceremonial donso ngoni (hunter's ngoni), his deft weaving of synthesizer-created sounds into the heritage mix arguably deepens the already hypnotic sound. The fact Malian heavyweights Ballaké Sissoko, on cascading kora (harp-lute), and the Francophile keyboardist Cheick Tidiane Seck both guest lends extra weight to Donso's collective vision.

Vocalist Gedeon Papa Diarra has a lilting, wide-ranging tenor that is as impressive on the hip-hop leaning ‘Musow’ as it is on the soulful Tile Ban,’ Closing track ‘Kono’ is a delicate, beep-laden beauty that fuses the two worlds beautifully.