Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabate - Ali & Toumani

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Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabate - Ali & Toumani
Two of Afrtica's most distinguished musicians reunited to record a follow-up album to their lauded 2005 collaboration, In The Heart Of The Moon; sadly, it was a session that was to prove a final one for the great Ali Farka Touré (who passed in 2006) but the standard of musicianship on show gives no suggestion of the legendary guitarist's declining health. For these compositions the old master is joined by Malian kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté, a musician as famed for his collaborations with Bjork as for his own fleet-fingered recordings. The performances are, as you'd hope, spectacularly good. Touré's playing reveals phantom connections to the blues on pieces such as 'Samba Geladio' and opener 'Ruby', during which he takes on a delicate, melancholy style that serves as a rhythmic foundation while Diabaté's resounding, harp-like figures flounce artfully across the piece. The recording style is suitably up-close and unflinching, giving the listener an incredible vantage point to these two master-musicians in action, and at every turn Ali & Toumani feels like a very special album. Significantly, this is music that will appeal far and beyond the imagery thrown up by outmoded conceptions of so-called 'world music'; anyone who's previously been enraptured by the instrumental aplomb of guitar giants from John Fahey and Robbie Basho to Bert Jansch and Davy Graham will surely hear the same streak of inspired musicianship running through these passages. Without doubt this is a momentous mid-career entry for Diabaté and a wonderful curtain call for the late, great Touré.