Sangoyi

Kala Jula is a collaboration between multi-instrumentalists Samba Diabaté and Vincent Zanetti, both of whom live in Mali, although the latter originally hails from Switzerland. The pair met while working in the ensemble of djembé thwacker Soungalo Coulibaly, their twinned guitars glowing at the music's heart. Both players mostly played acoustic, yet they occasionally picked up a soft-voiced electric. Diabaté originally played balafon, touring with the singer Sali Sidibé, but he eventually gravitated to guitar. This is a set of acoustic wonderment, an intimately recorded feast of strings, with Zanetti also providing some percussion and Diabaté sometimes switching to ngoni or bass. Trumpeter Yannick Barman guests on three cuts, and his powdery precision recalls the talkative modality of the Beirut brassman Ibrahim Maalouf. Sidikiba Coulibaly also contributes to a couple of tunes, singing and playing the simbi, a harp-like instrument from Guinea.

Guitar phrases are finely embellished, but once or twice, a tune skirts a little too close to a prettified blanding-out of its Malian source, especially in the choice of certain singer-songwriter chord progressions.

The duo maintain an intimate feel for most of the pieces, but import just the right amount of extra colours to periodically expand the palette.