Gambari Band-Kokuma

Gambari Band-Kokuma

Love, laughter, tragedy and triumph are only some of the ingredients of Gambari Band s fascinating debut album ''Kokuma''. This fantastic new group from Mali, West Africa, used to be more or less the Ngoni Ba behind Bassekou Kouyaté. Since parting ways with their uncle/cousin/brother in 2012, the nine piece ensemble has played with the likes of Brian Eno or Damon Albarn and his ''Africa Express'', and keeps wowing audiences every Saturday Night at Habib Koité s ''Hotel Maya'' in Bamako. Their distinct sound, at once earthy and graceful, uplifting and deep, wraps the plucked strings of the Ngoni that ancient Malian lute of the Griots, played masterfully by the group s leader Oumar Barou Kouyaté around beautiful vocal harmonies and an assortment of hip-shaking and head-nodding (poly)rhythms, like the ''Gambari'', which lends itself to the band s name. Mell Dettmer, who looks back on a deep discography of work with the likes of Eyvind Kang, Femi Kuti, Bill Frisell and Clinton Fearon, produced the album at studio Bogolan in Bamako after the Coup d état and the Tuareg Rebellion. ''Recording went amazing'', Dettmer remembers. ''We recorded everything in six days most of it live except the vocals with Kankou and Massaran Kouyate which we overdubbed later. All the performances really depended on Barou s solos. So if he didn t do a solo we liked we would just do another take. The band is really that great!'' Back in the States Dettmer re-amped all the Ngoni s and rerecorded them like they sound at a live performance, before mixing and mastering the album at her studio in Seattle. The result is ''Kokuma'', Gambari band s debut for the European label Membran, and a true gem: the intricate layers of the voices, ngonis and percussion will draw you into the atmosphere of true ancient Malian griot culture and yet it is as vibrant and alive today as it was hundreds of years ago.