Joy

Three continents, one album, ten mellifluous performances. Those are the basic figures of AKA Trio; Italy's Antonio Forcione, Senegal's Seckou Keita, and Brazil's Adriano Adewale combine their masteries of guitar, kora, voice and percussion. They've performed on and off together for eight years, and convened in Master Chord Studios in London to write and improvise these ten nuggets of Joy. The opening title-track came from a jam session, while each member stirs songs into the pot for the group to wield their combined virtuosity, without ever overdoing, overplaying or straying from the songs' core architectures. The guitar and kora, especially, work well, and through them all, the subtlety of Forcione's percussive lines weave overlapping patterns of layered time.

For all the joy, there is a fair weight of yearning too, in songs such as Keita's ‘Kanou’ (Love) and Adewale's ‘Midnight Blooming’ and ‘Saudade’, each of which spring from the far end of love affairs. But their dark nights of the soul seem to float above this music like banks of early summer cumulus. Keita's ‘Uncle Solo’ is a tribute to his uncle, the great kora player Jali Solo Cissokho, and there's a paean to ‘The Beautiful Game’ of football in Adewale's evocation of Brazil with Pelé, expressed in the free-flowing, minimalist mastery of these three players of their own beautiful game.