With his previous album (2013) Bassekou Kouyaté managed to strike a chord with a wide audience. The Malians, for example, played at Lowlands, Down The Rabbit Hole and North Sea Jazz. Everyone who was there knows why. Kouyaté plays the planks from the floor with his ngoni, a stringed instrument the size of a lunch box. Kouyaté sometimes performs solo on his instrument for minutes. The electric
… sound he makes with it sometimes evokes echoes of the guitar solos of or . Add to that the inimitable dance rhythms and the penetrating voice of his wife and the result is a musical tornado. This fourth album also starts off like a whirlwind, with a leading role for Kouyaté's vicious ngonisolos. Gradually the group also slows down, culminating in the relaxed swaying closer Bassekouni. The powerful Ba Power lives up to its name. (PdK)more
