Mali Overdrive

Yet another Malian artist caught up in the unrest that has recently destabilised his country, Anansy Cissé hails from the northern Fulani stronghold of Dire, but was forced to relocate to Bamako where he recorded his debut album Mali Overdrive.

Apart from drawing on Fulani styles, he also delves into Songhai folklore for traditional influences. Anyone familiar with Festival Au Desert albums will already know the loping syncopations of the takamba rhythm on ‘Horey’, which enriches a variety of styles and settings.

Cissé is also greatly inspired by vintage psychedelic rock, but thankfully not too obviously. While his guitar usually has plenty of distortion, at least Djime Sissoko's ngoni is spared the dreaded wah-wah pedal treatment. The other key hired hand is the ubiquitous Zoumana Tereta, whose raunchy soku fiddle features occasionally, although he doesn’t sing. That's all left to Cissé, who delivers all his own lyrics passably enough, although he doesn’t exactly radiate vocal charisma; only on ‘Sekou Amadou’, his tribute to the founder of the Fulani empire, does he achieve a more passionate delivery. Elsewhere, his songs cover a fairly standard array of topics such as morality, life advice and so on. Although with a name like Anansy, we might have expected some epic story-telling in the style of that other Malian artist, Ali Farka Touré – Anansi being the trickster spider-man of West African folklore.