Touristes

The Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré and the 25-year-old American singer Julia Easterlin met in New York in 2014 when Vieux was playing with Idan Raichel. She got on stage with them and sang an unrehearsed version of Bob Dylan's ‘Masters of War’, which in turn led to the recording of this ten-track album. Dylan's universal protest song takes pole position in a slow, mournful arrangement with Easterlin's voice multi-tracked in haunting fashion. For her the song is about America's illegal war in Iraq, while for Vieux it conjures up the Islamist war in northern Mali; their contrasting but complementary perspectives conspire to create one of the finest ever versions of Dylan's angriest protest song. Equally striking are Easterlin's own ‘Took My Brother Down’, inspired by the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; it's rendered as a Saharan desert blues. There's also a mesmerising version of the Appalachian murder ballad ‘In the Pines’. Vieux takes the lead vocal on three tracks, including ‘Bamba Na Wili’, which namechecks his father Ali Farka, but turns out to be a tribute to his paternal grandmother. ‘Little Things’ is a thrilling take on the classic West African song ‘Kaira’ with Easterlin extemporising her own English lyrics. An unexpected delight.