Farafinko

In case he’s not been picked up on your personal radar yet, Aly Keita is a balafon (xylophone) player from Ivory Coast who can count the likes of Trilok Gurtu and Joe Zawinul among his past collaborators. To what extent Keita is hell-bent on waking the world up to the glories of the balafon remain unclear, but there’s no reason why – on the basis of the all-instrumental Farafinko – he can’t nab at least some of the limelight afforded to the kora over the years.

His playing is delightfully expressive and has plenty of range, from the bright and chirpy (‘Makuku’ and the hypnotic closer ‘Lafia’) to the deeply meditative (‘Bamana Folie’). ‘Un Village’, his evocation of an upbringing among a family of balafon players, is enchantingly undulating, a quality shared by the tribute he pays to his father, the rather wonderful ‘Baba Moussa’. Keita’s dynamism very definitely succeeds in providing far more than pleasant, atmospheric music for the dinner-party set. While the variety of pace, tone and mood he draws from his balafon are impressive, perhaps we could have done with a just a little variation. The Ivorian singer Dobet Gnahoré has sung with Keita in the past and some weightless female vocals occasionally floating over the rippling notes would have been welcomed. But this is a minor quibble. Toumani Diabaté has shown how the world can engage with one man and his West African instrument. That’s a path that Aly Keita can clearly follow.