Djiyo

Anyone who heard Ablaye Cissoko & Cyrille Brotto on their last collaboration, Instant from 2022, will probably want to hear this one. The Senegalese singer and kora player and French diatonic button accordion player are a dynamic duo, the delicate plucked strings of the kora contrasting with the more sustained and slightly melancholy tones of the accordion – both instruments can articulate incisive rhythms. And Cissoko has a glorious voice, warm and sonorous in the title-track, which translates to ‘water’ in Mandinka. Although the piece sounds pretty calm, it’s about the destructive power of water as well as its life-giving force. In ‘Ni Wilita’ Cissoko is more declamatory with a message about gratitude. What’s remarkable is the way one instrument takes over from the other, at one moment the kora taking the lead, then the accordion and back – both weaving around each other and the voice. The accordion leads in ‘A l’Oeil Nu’, a memorable yearning tune; there’s also a striking solo in ‘Kana Maloundi’, and in ‘Nina’, it’s almost as if it’s audibly breathing. ‘Amanké Dionti’ is a standout, with a rippling kora opening although it turns out that Cissoko’s sweet-sounding vocals are condemning the exploitation of young girls; ‘Amanké Dionti’ means ‘She is Not Your Slave’. An album that will stand up to repeated listening.