Kalan Teban

When this trio's first release, Kalo-Yele (reviewed in #117), came out in 2016 it promised much but delivered rather less. On the album, Aly Keïta, an Ivorian master of the chromatic balafon, and his two Cameroon-born Swiss colleagues, percussionist Lucas Niggli and multi-instrumentalist Jan Galega Brönnimann, tended to improvise fairly aimlessly around a series of repetitive motifs.

Their second album is a distinct improvement. They may still have a slight tendency to wander off-piste, but there is generally much more in the way of melody, internal tension and thematic development now in evidence. Take, for example, the longest track at around nine minutes, ‘Douala’, which builds from a quietly dramatic introduction, constructed around the interplay between the balafon and Niggli's multi-faceted percussion, into a central theme coloured and sustained by first Brönnimann's bass clarinet and later soprano saxophone.

Technically, all three are masters of their instruments, but on balance it's Aly Keïta's balafon that draws the attention and leaves an impression reminiscent of Lansiné Kouyaté & David Neerman's edgy Kangaba (reviewed in #62). The vocal added to his lovely composition, ‘Mago-Sobè’, leaves you with the hope that we'll hear more of Keïta's voice next time.