Tambacounda Express

The Lovin’ Spoonful's John Sebastian once sang that ‘there's 1,352 guitar pickers in Nashville’; there are surely at least as many kora players in West Africa. The Senegalese kora player Diabel Cissokho's CV includes Mansana Blues, a fusion album with the British blues guitarist Ramon Goose, and 2012's Kanabory Siyama, an authentic roots album of elegant Mande melodies. The follow-up, Tambacounda Express, combines elements of both approaches. Taking its title from the train he rode as a boy through Mali, the Ivory Coast and Senegal to earn loose change by helping passengers on and off with their luggage, the 15 tracks reflect the journey, incorporating a panoply of regional West African styles. The opener, ‘Goré Island’, is a funk-fuelled Afro-blues with wailing harmonica and electric guitar complementing Cissokho's rhythmic kora playing as he sings in a deep sonorous voice over a John Lee Hooker-style beat. ‘Kélékelé’ is a meltingly beautiful Mande tune played solo on the kora and sounding, in Toumani Diabaté fashion, as if he's playing two instruments simultaneously. ‘Sama Kharite’ hits with a hypnotic Ali Farka Touré-style Songhai groove and ‘Maman Africa’ is an earthy slice of unashamed Afro-pop. The results on this album are as impressive as they are diverse.