Most people, I’d imagine, would know Sengalese percussionist and singer Youssou Ndour best from Seven Seconds, his collaboration with Neneh Cherry, but he’s also done a lot of work with Peter Gabriel as well (but not yet, in the timeline of the albums).
There are just four tracks on this album, between around 6-12 minutes long, and it was like a return to the Fifties Afro-Cuban jazz in some ways. They tracks aren’t fully instrumental, they feature calls and chants in what I don't think are French but some Sengalese indigenous language - I'd guess from my perfunctory research that it's Wolof - by N’Dour, Ousseynou Ndiaye, and Alla Seck. Talking drums and a variety of African and Latin percussion instruments provide complex backing beats, with Latin-sounding horns and wandering guitar (from Mamadou "Jimi" Mbaye). The fusion style is known as “mbalax”, and N’Dour is something of a pioneer of the style.
It’s very polyrhythmic, but not in the chaotic style that Trout Mask Replica was – this is more like one drum is playing a four-time rhythm while another is playing five-time, meaning that they get in sync every twentieth bar and then drift apart again. Note these are probably not the actual time signatures, but that should give you an idea. But there are more layers than that, and the resultant sound is very infectious without becoming repetitive.
I’ve no idea what the songs are actually about, but you don’t need to know to enjoy them. Having a bit of “world music” to round off 1984 was nice, as looking back at the albums on offer there was a bit more variety here than I expected – looks like the mid-Eighties are shaping up to be bit of a transitional stage. As for this album – really liked it, it’s always a refreshing change to get something non-Western.
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