African Virtuoses - The Classic Guinean Guitar Group (2007)

ARTIST`````African Virtuoses

ALBUM`````The Classic Guinean Guitar Group

GENRE`````African Folk, World, Latin Influenced

YEAR````````2007

Why

Life would be beautiful if it sounded like this.

Info:

After rushes on gnarly West African music over the past year-- particularly records by Saharan trance bands Tartit, Etran Finatawa, and the fierce Tinariwen-- the focus is sliding down the coast's bulb. This comp of lyric acoustic guitar work from the Diabate family is the third Guinean release Sterns Africa has offered this year, alongside a reissue of a Bembeya Jazz Ensemble retrospective and a singles collection from the Guinean state-run label Syliphone.

Review from Pitchfork:

Not to say that it's protest music, because it's not. If anything, the central charm here is how damn unhurried and relaxed the Diabates sound. Even when they ornament-- and the music is so harmonically and rhythmically simple that it's almost all ornament-- it's more amble than flash; on the closing "Solo Virtuose", Papa Diabate has about seventeen minutes all to himself, so he spreads out, sometimes lapsing into arpeggios alongside brother Sékou for the sake of mutual hypnosis.

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