Typically when I hear music like what comprises Cheick Hamala Diabaté’s new 45, my mind instantly goes towards Gabo Brown and countless other large scale outfits who took James Brown’s funk stew and threw their own elements in to create a far tastier concoction all around. Granted, I’m not looking to say that what Diabaté is doing here is run of the mill - to the contrary, the man’s work is renowned and with his knowledge and expertise on 800 years of his home country Mali’s history, one could say that he knows this music better than anyone else. While the sounds contained on this single are newly recorded, they’re as vintage as they come.
A well respected and highly regarded lecturer globally, Diabaté’s main claim to fame is his mastery (he’s considered one of the best in the world) of the ngoni - a stringed instrument of West African origin composed of wood, calabash (a gourd shaped fruit) and dried animal skin stretched over it in a manner emulating a drum. It is this instrument that maintains a constant presence on both sides of the 45.
The opening moments of ‘Tagamba’ are tempered and restrained with flashes and pops of horns as the flame makes its journey towards the end of the candle wick. A pulsating bass line carries the tune as the band conjure hypnotizing grooves that sound more on par with labelmates Debo Band or a member of the Kuti empire. Adopting the basic drone elements of indigenous African music, the track continues to simmer as if on a loop. This approach never tires during the duration of play however and by the end of its taut 5 minute duration, actually feels somewhat incomplete as the composition feels like it should be three times its length in order to fully allow the listener to soak in everything that’s going on (don’t take this as detraction, take it as an indication of how irresistible the music is that it should be allotted a longer period of time to play out).
“Sigi Diya” comprises the B side and thankfully does not relinquish any energy found on the A side. While the bass cooked on “Tagamba”, the lines on ‘Sigi Diya’ sound like heartbeats. Consistent and unflinching, it acts as a low end metronome guiding the tightly executed percussion while getting the rhythm section as a whole out of the way allowing the horn flourishes to weave in and out behind the vocalists who take charge over the track, laying back to let the instruments breath for only moments at a time before stepping back in. While the man may be quite busy with speaking engagements and live performances, it’s great to see Diabaté able to lay solid compositions down in the studio that surely retain all of the fire and force of his live outings. Now if we could just get an extended version of “Tagamba”...
Purchase a copy of the 45 at Electric Cowbell and give a listen to Tagamaba on SoundCloud.
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