Lumba

The acoustic trio Tamala’s second album harvests a generous crop of 13 long songs, featuring Mola Sylla and Bao Sissoko from Senegal, along with the Belgian violinist Wouter Vandenabeele. All three of them sing, along with Sylvie Nawasadio, and Olivier Vander Bauwede also guests on harmonica. Mola provides the central voice, burred and low, as well as playing kalimba (thumb piano), ritti (one-string fiddle) and xalam (lute). Bao plays kora and calabash. The violin is what makes Tamala sound so unusual, lending further harmonic possibilities and, while not being fixed to any one style, still making excursions well outside West Africa. Recording microphones are placed intimately, drawing in the listener, heightening a sense of savoured space, decidedly unhurried. Further sidesteps are made when Bauwede contributes harmonica, used to add a huffing rhythmic drive, and Mari Kalkun, the Estonian singer and kannel (zither) player, appears on ‘Tule Tuul’. Her voice is close to your ear, then Mola moves forward to your other lughole, and the song spins a web of entanglement, as vocal phrases criss-cross.