Ladilikan

This album is a sublime meeting of two superb chamber groups. On the one hand there is San Francisco's string quartet Kronos, who've been exploring music around the world for 40 years; on the other, the relatively young Trio da Kali, featuring top musicians on Mali's oldest instruments – the voice, the balafon (xylophone) and ngoni (lute). The trio, put together by Lucy Durán and supported by the Aga Khan Music Initiative, come from the sort of lineage that only Mali can provide: singer Hawa Diabaté is daughter of the great griot singer Kassé Mady Diabaté; bass ngoni player Mamadou Kouyaté is the eldest son of ngoni maestro Bassekou Kouyaté; and Lassana Diabaté is probably the country's leading balafon player (and also composes of most of the music). The opener ‘Tita’ has Trio da Kali taking the lead in a song of advice, with light quartet accompaniment until about three minutes in, when they respond with a great emotional outburst. In the upbeat ‘Lila Bambo’, the delicate counterpoint of balafon and strings is superb, thanks to arranger Jacob Garchik.
When Kronos leader David Harrington first heard Hawa Diabaté, he says she immediately reminded him of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. The most arresting track is ‘God Shall Wipe All Tears Away’, a Jackson song translated into Bamana, with the quartet imitating a church organ. The title-track is also a Mahalia Jackson melody, but with Malian lyrics about practicing what you preach, condemning Islamists praying and then murdering, as happened in Timbuktu. With its bluesy balafon solos and powerful fusion of two great traditions – the Malian, dating back to the 13th century, the string quartet dating back to the 18th – this record shows just how innovative, meaningful and musically satisfying such meetings can be.