Africa Talks to You

Though Mali Music (Astralwerks), the new project spearheaded by Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn, runs the inevitable risk of being lumped with such ethnotechno ephemera as the Buddha Bar series and Afro-Celt Sound System, let's hope it doesn't get lost there. Though it toys with the same elements that most world-fusion projects truck in -- namely, remixing and "treating" instruments electronically -- it somehow escapes its putative genre's taints unscathed. A soundscape both compelling and gorgeous, it's far more lush and mysterious than any of Albarn's other projects. The album seems like a spiritual brother of such records as Brian Eno's Another Green World, Tricky's Maxinquaye, Arto Lindsay's Mundo Civilizado, and Latin Playboys: the kind of aural playground in which the artist invites the listener to get lost in glorious music.

If the whole endeavor sounds suspicious, never fear -- initially, Albarn had cold feet about it as well. The project began with a call from Oxfam, the United Kingdom's largest charitable relief organization, who asked Albarn to participate in an ad campaign to promote awareness of economic hardship in Mali. "I was critical of their approach," he told journalist Chris Lee of Gear. "You're airlifted in somewhere quite harrowing, you do an advert for the agency, and then you're airlifted out. That process has, in some ways, made us cynical to the outside world." Ultimately, Albarn agreed to fly to Mali only if he could meet the local musicians -- not for the purposes of making an album per se, but he took a portable studio with him anyway to document his trip.

This led to various jam sessions on street corners, bars, concert halls, and even a riverboat, with contributions from unaccredited hopefuls to established recording artists like Afel Bocum and Toumani Diabaté, both of whom make crucial contributions. One has to admire Albarn's integrity in this respect -- most of pop music's Paul Simons and Peter Gabriels already come to the fray with their own songs and their own ideas, with indigenous musicians and singers employed only for color. Albarn had no game plan, no reams of lyrics, no preconceived ideas on how to approach the music. In fact, he does very little singing on Mali Music -- some humming, some percussive backing vocals, and only one full-fledged lyric, on the majestic "Sunset Coming On," the album's only English language moment.

Though the music belongs to the Malian musicians no matter who gets the songwriting credits in the lavish booklet (Albarn -- but he is donating all of his royalties to Oxfam), Albarn's contributions to this album are undeniably what make it so special. First, despite the skillful playing of his collaborators, Albarn's melodica (a small keyboard instrument into which the player blows; think reggae titan Augustus Pablo) serves as Mali Music's sonic signature. Though he's hardly a virtuoso on the instrument, its novelty enlivens every song on which it appears, and the four note figure that he repeats in several tracks later serves as the lovely chorus for "Sunset Coming On," the album's centerpiece. The melodica appealed to Albarn's new friends too, most of whom had no idea what it was this strange guy from England was playing: "It got people's attention. "He's come here with that thing to play with us? We've got nothing to worry about, so let's enjoy ourselves."

But it's Albarn's other contribution to the music that's the most fascinating -- after collecting about forty hours of recorded jams, he took the tapes back to England. There, in his home studio, he heavily remixed the results, layered on a few more instruments, and cut them down to appropriate lengths. Then, he sent the tapes back to Mali for more seasoning by Afel Bocoum -- once again, an act that speaks volumes for the care Albarn had for this music, and the people who made it. Though obviously responsible for the sonic sheen that separates this record from any Ali Farka Toure or Oumou Sangare album you've ever heard, Albarn obviously took great pains to keep his ego a respectful distance away from the music. Finally, a world music project in which no one knows who is leading (or stealing) from whom -- could Paul Simon ever be so humble?

Arrayed in a suite both enchanting and haunting, Mali Music is like very few records in either the African or Western pop arena. Swimming in layers of studio trickery, it resonates in the mind's ear like an aural déjà vu, like distant melodies wrapped in the gauze of half-memory. It begins with the swirling waltz "Spoons," in which a Malian orchestra dances around Albarn's detached, wordless singing. A few seconds in and the drums drop out, pulling the song into a mesh of effects that sound like the players are trapped underwater. Instruments roll in and out like tides. Then, the music lunges forward, like a diver breaking through the surface of the ocean, and you can almost hear the band take a giant collective breath of air.

Some passages aren't nearly so metaphysical -- the next track, "Bamako City," features very little in the way of electronic instrumentation, but the weaving of the singing with Albarn's kalimba and Diabaté's kora is hypnotic regardless. Another, the heavily remixed "Makelekele," rocks the house like prime Fatboy Slim, with a big assist from guitarist Lobi Traoré. For the most part, however, the album's element is far more in the realm of the abstract -- when Albarn claims that remixing the record was his attempt to "build my own impression of what happened to me," he's not joking. One of the most spellbinding songs on the record, "Tennessee Hotel," features the singing of Albarn and Nabitou Diakité, both of whom pirouette around a compelling spoken word track. Buoyed by a breezy percussion arrangement, the manner in which the trio's voices fold over each other evokes a view from a speeding car in which the scenery rushes by breathlessly. Nothing distinct -- only something heartbreakingly beautiful and too distant to touch.

For his part, Albarn has made some regrettable statements in the press about the resulting album representing "the Africanization of western music," but that's patently ridiculous -- from blues to jazz to gospel to what-have-you, the 20th century was nothing but the Africanization of western music. Nevertheless, Mali Music achieves a high pitch of dialogue between Eurocentric and Afrocentric culture, an ebb and flow in which two cultures wash over each other seamlessly. Sly Stone almost titled an album Africa Talks To You, but in his jaded perspective, the Africa in question was dead, and the intended listener too alienated to reconnect. This is more like it: a healthy aural conversation between a group of musicians who literally don't speak the same language -- verbal language, anyway. If only Sly Stone was still connected enough to hear it.

Chicago, IL
October 2002