Vieux Farka Touré, The Secret (Six Degrees, 2011)

Vieux Farka Touré's new album may be called The Secret, but it's no secret that the guy can play guitar.  The son of Malian musical legend Ali Farka Touré has made a career out of combining the rhythms and styles of his homeland with some fierce electric guitar, but while some of his work is really good, a lot of it is uneven as well. His new album brings more of the same, which is both good and bad.

The problem with The Secret is that it sounds a little too familiar if you've heard Touré's previous recordings.  The only real twists come from the guest appearances of Derek Trucks on slide guitar on "Aigna" and Dave Matthews with some vocals in English on "All the Same."  Otherwise, while the songs "Sokosondou" and "Borei" have a good combination of energy and guitar pyrotechnics, the rest of the album is too formulaic.  Touré seems most comfortable when he's rocking out, and sounds like he's going through the motions the rest of the time. The only really interesting of the more traditional tracks is the title track, an extended instrumental with a slow but steady groove.

Vieux Farka Touré has made three albums now, and unfortunately the quality of his output has declined since his very solid debut. The Secret has some fine moments, but not enough for me to recommend it ahead of Touré's earlier work.

Overall grade: C+

reviewed by Scott

"All the Same," featuring Dave Matthews

Vieux Farka Touré, Fondo (Six Degrees Records, 2009)

With his 2006 self-titled debut CD, Vieux Farka Touré embraced the legacy left him by his late father, the venerable Malian guitarist singer Ali Farka Touré. The younger Farka Touré has quickly built up a solid reputation on his own terms, though. His second CD Fondo finds him largely going electric, finding a middle ground between the guitar and kora music of his homeland and some good old-fashioned rock and roll.

Touré's embrace of amplifiers and distortion on Fondo is a mixed blessing. On one hand, the album's high-energy songs really rock, especially the hyper workout "Sarama." Touré puts some percussion and some simple yet very effective drumming underneath his frenetic guitar playing, and the result is a really exciting track. On most of the quieter numbers, though, the electric guitar doesn't work quite as well as an acoustic guitar would. I also don't think Touré has the same melodic sense with his playing that his countryman Habib Koité does, and he frequently lets his guitar dominate the instrumental arrangement too much. For example, the song "Mali" has some nice accompanying instrumentation, but you have to listen closely to hear it underneath the heavily distorted guitar. By contrast, Touré shares the spotlight with kora player Toumani Diabaté on the really pretty instrumental "Paradise." Fondo would have benefited from more tunes like this one.

Vieux Farka Touré clearly builds most of the arrangements to the songs on Fondo around his guitar. While I'm sure this works perfectly well in a live context, it sometimes sounds as though the song exists merely as an excuse to set up the next guitar solo. This isn't necessarily a bad thing -- Eric Clapton is probably more guilty of that than anybody, and I'm a huge fan -- but you do have to wonder how many of the songs really hold up independently of the guitar. Still, "Sarama" and "Paradise" are excellent recordings, and fans of Malian guitar music will probably find plenty else to like here as well.

Overall grade: B

reviewed by Scott


Co-producer Yossi Fine talks about the making of Fondo.

Top 10 CD's of 2007

Another year, another mountain of CD's reviewed here. As I've finally got all the reviews up, I'll spare long discussions and just link to the original posts.

10. The Born Again Floozies, 7 Deadly Sinners: I had a whole bunch of B+ albums, and room for only one of them in the top 10. (I think I need to make some of my B+ grades into B's, while we're on the subject. Some of the B+ albums were clearly better than others.) Perhaps being freshest in my memory gave this particular CD the needed boost, but chalk one up for novelty.

9. Vieux Farka Touré: The younger Farka Touré picks up his father's mantle with nicely with a lot of groove-oriented guitar playing on his debut.




8. Alamaailman Vasarat, Maahan: Totally frenetic, but also totally original and fun.




7. John Fogerty, Revival: A venerable legend gets mad, gets even, and keeps rocking.




6. Roachford, Word of Mouth: It will take more than my word of mouth to get Roachford albums released in the U. S. again. Our loss.




5. Kíla, Gambler's Ballet: Another album not yet released here, but at least I have hopes for this one.




4. Gomez, How We Operate: I know, this came out in 2006, but it would have cracked last year's list had I known about it. So it's on this year's list instead.




3. Väsen, Linnaeus Väsen: A great live act in either format, but their albums as a quartet have always worked a little better for me than their albums as a trio.




2. Ranarim, Morning Star: Two Swedish albums in the top three. Deal with it.





1. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Baby 81: Essential hard rock from a band that keeps getting better.




reviewed by Scott

Vieux Farka Touré (World Village, 2006)

Before his untimely passing last year, Malian singer/guitarist Ali Farka Touré was one of the most widely revered musicians on the African continent. Now his son Vieux Farka Touré is carrying the torch, with the release of his self-titled debut CD. Vieux Farka Touré is a promising work from a young performer who certainly appears capable of making his own mark on the music of his homeland.

The nation of Mali has produced its share of fine guitarists. Habib Koité could hold his own trading licks with any other acoustic guitarist on the planet, and Amadou Bagayoko of Amadou & Mariam possesses a mastery of the electric guitar made all the more remarkable by his blindness. In terms of technical proficiency, the younger Touré is not quite a match for those two. However, he makes up for it with a strong sense of rhythm. On songs like the opener "Sangare" and "Ma Hine Cocore," Touré cranks out some grooves that are hard to resist. He gets some high profile help on his debut as well. His father contributed some guitar on a few tracks, in what turned out to be some of his final recordings. Toumani Diabaté, a mentor to Vieux and a virtuoso on the traditional African instrument called the kora, plays on a pair of instrumental duets, of which "Touré de Niafunké" is particularly good.

Certainly fans of Malian guitar music will want to give Vieux Farka Touré a listen. For those who aren't familiar with the style, there are plenty of performers worth checking out -- I've already mentioned Habib Koité and Amadou & Mariam, and of course there's always Vieux's father -- but Vieux Farka Touré has already earned the right to be mentioned in that group, and seems likely to get better from here.

Overall grade: A-

reviewed by Scott