The Secret

In the past, some of Vieux Farka Touré's guitar playing has steered perilously close to the self-indulgent and generic, particularly during some of his live concerts. But here, at last, he really seems to be forging his own identity as both a guitarist and a maturing songwriter. The opening number, ‘Bokosondou’, is a swirling mesh of guitars and call-and-response vocals; as confident a statement of intent as you could get. It's as if the rather stultifying rock influences that seemed to hold sway over him for a while have now been fully assimilated.

There are quite a few guests on this album. But they're not guests in the awful American back-slapping sense of the word. Here they serve the material rather than detract from it. So Derek Trucks’ slippery slide guitar on ‘Aigna’ has an almost Indian raga flavour to it, which takes the tune to a whole different place. And Eric Krasno contributes some incisive bluesy licks to the almost Amadou & Mariam-like ‘Lakkal (Watch Out)’.

But it's the title-track that will probably be given the most attention. Its central motif was record by Vieux's legendary guitarist father, Ali Farka Touré, shortly before he died. It has that quintessential desert blues feel, with father and son's guitars circling and entwining around each other while a flute occasionally breaks the surface. In some ways it represents the whole album, one in which the guitar is benevolent king rather than repressive dictator.