N'Diale

The musics of West Africa and the Celtic world might appear unlikely bedfellows but they're far from strangers. We've heard the likes of the Afro Celts and Baka Beyond joining the dots from Derry to Dakar, from Bantry to Bamako. Now it's the turn of the Celtic stronghold of Brittany to go transcontinental, as violinist Jacky Molard's Breton four-piece team up with a Malian trio fronted by the elastic voice of Foune Diarra. And it's a collaboration that doesn't jar in the slightest, a perfectly weighted partnership of equals. No single instrument is vying for its place in the sun; Molard's violin gallops in tandem with Kassim Sidibe's snaking kamalengoni (hunter's lute), while double bass and djembé effortlessly find compatible rhythms. And when the accordion takes a more leading role (as on the propulsive title-track), it sounds as if the Penguin Café Orchestra have gone en vacances to the Sahel. Breton music's close connections with Irish traditions have been well recorded and a footnote to that relationship is added when Diarra sings on ‘Charlie's Welcome’, a series of hornpipes previously popularised by the Dublin master piper Seamus Ennis.

Shot through with an open-minded, improvisational attitude, this is a record that has no place for overstatement or gimmicks. It simply takes its time to get where it wants to go, unafraid to take the road less travelled to reach its destination. The result is a gently unfolding record that both stimulates and satisfies.