Vieux Farka Touré: Fondo (Six Degrees)
The late Ali Farka Touré's 28-year-old son Vieux inherited his father's talents. Vieux is a chip off the old block in both his singing and his stinging guitar style; he taught himself guitar by playing along with his father's albums and learning his tuning system. So it's not surprising that he sometimes sounds exactly like his dad on his second album, Fondo ("the road"), especially on the traditional song "Walé" (all other tracks are Vieux originals), and certainly fans of his father's music -- especially his bluesy, keening guitar style -- will enjoy this album.
But Vieux is not content to merely copy; his music has a distinct personality, often denser, its style slightly more modern. It's not that he's been seduced by synthesizers or similar electronic accouterments; it's the way the drumming is heavier (for instance, the rock-reggae beat of "Diaraby Magni" interestingly, a little biographical research shows that Vieux was a drummer before he was a guitarist.
For variety, there's the beautiful instrumental "Paradise," featuring kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté. That and a short instrumental reprise of the opening song, "Fafa," close the album on a gentle note.
My only complaint is that Six Degrees has left non-natives in the dark about song lyrics—there are no lyric sheets, translations, or even those little song-by-song summaries world-music fans are used to. Nonetheless, on its musical merits alone, Fondo just might turn out to be the best new African album of 2009.