01.05.2013
Samba Touré - new album
new album 'Albala' out 6 May 2013 on Glitterbeat Records
When you meet Samba Touré in person, he comes off as a soft-spoken man, a man who easily charms you with his abundant smile and optimistic gait. But on his third album, 'Albala', which in the Songhai language means "danger" or "risk", a weighted and at times defiant side of his personality emerges. To call 'Albala' his darkest album is an understatement, but it is not a self-absorbed darkness. The cause of Samba's worry is the crashing world around him, and more specifically the troubles echoing out from his beloved northern Mali homeland.
As a band member and valued collaborator of the late Malian legend Ali Farka Touré, Samba established a significant reputation, and through his first two solo albums, 'Songhaï Blues' and 'Crocodile Blues' (World Music Network), his confidence and musical prowess grew proportionately. But 'Albala' is a new flash point. There is more power, there is more grit, the mood is deeper, and aptly, given the album's title, Samba takes more musical risks.
Recorded at Studio Mali in Bamako in the autumn of 2012, Samba is joined by his regular band members Djimé Sissoko (ngoni) and Madou Sanogo (congas, djembe) and guests such as Zoumana Tereta, the legendary master of the soku (a one-stringed violin) and the fast-rising Malian neo-traditional singer Aminata Wassidje Traore. Additionally, Hugo Race (The Bad Seeds, Dirtmusic, Fatalists) contributes an array of subtle atmospherics on guitar and keyboards, with Chris Eckman (The Walkabouts, Dirtmusic etc.) and Philippe Sammiguel in the producers' seats.