Do we still need to present the immense African guitarist Ali Farka Touré? Disappeared in 2006, this national hero in Mali is known worldwide for his collaborations with Ry Cooder and Toumani Diabaté and for his singular blues infused with West African tradition, nicknamed the blues of the desert.
His son Vieux Farka Touré, who took over, wanted to pay tribute to him on an album by covering some of his classics and was looking for a group to support him in this task. On the advice of his manager, this accomplished guitarist went to see Khruangbin in concert and the deal was sealed in London in record time.
With three albums released since 2015, including the formidable Mordechai in 2020, the Texan group Khruangbin (which means “airplane” in Thai) have experienced a meteoric rise in recent years in the wake of their international tours. Made up of Mark Speer on guitar, Laura Lee Ochoa on bass and Donald Johnson on drums, the trio mixes many influences from Thai funk and dub as well as psychedelia and Latin music – we have them seen last April at the Olympia resume in their sauce with crazy fluidity as well Gainsbourg as Snoop Dogg, Chris Isaak and the theme of Midnight Express, in a playful blind-test style exercise.
“For me, music is magic, it’s spontaneous, it’s the energy between people“, said Vieux Farka Touré in the press release. “I think Khruangbin understands this very well.“
Recorded in a week in 2019 during live sessions close to improvisation in the barn of Khruangbin in Texas, the album Ali, the result of their collaboration, is a marvel. It consists of eight covers, carefully chosen by Vieux from his father’s repertoire, the best known as diaraby and Savannah, to the most obscure such Alakarra. But these are more rewrites than actual covers. As Khruangbin explains to the BBC, Vieux made them work blind, never telling them in advance what titles they were going to play, in order to allow Texans to follow their instincts freely.
On the opening title Savannahin which they reimagine Savannah (with a single n) released on Ali Farka Touré’s last album in 2006, Vieux’s six strings respond to the reggae-dub rhythm of the Texans, giving the piece a new depth and remarkable amplitude. Diarabia title from Ali Farka Touré’s famous album with Ry Cooder Talking Timbuktu (1994), is transformed here, with its flirtatious choirs, into a soft and sensual song. On the very danceable Tongo Barra, Vieux’s dynamic songhai vocals are carried by Mark Speer’s playful blues motifs for a playful and voluptuous result. As for the blissful dryness of Lobboit becomes here a jewel where the riffs of the two guitarists intertwine and dialogue with birdsong.
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Ali therefore brings the music of Ali Farka Touré up to date, as his son wished, while soaking the sound so characteristic of Khruangbin with the sounds of West Africa. The virtuoso guitar and Malian vocals of Vieux Farka Touré fit perfectly with the sense of space and the cosmopolitan appetite of the Texans. It’s a realized album”in a spirit open to experimentation, while relying on African culture, the source“, Old explains to the BBC. “It is different and new but also familiar and universal.“
As with all his projects, Khruangbin once again succeeds in weaving bewitching music on a cushion of air, so dreamy and luminous that one is not far from thinking that the Texan trio holds the magic formula of sound “feel good“. Be that as it may, the great hackneyed truth that music is a universal language is verified here: Khruangbin and Vieux Farka Touré do not speak the same language but dialogue divinely on this disc with their instruments.
“Ali” by Vieux Farka Touré and Khruangbin (Dead Oceans) will be released on September 23