Bush Taxi Mali review

Cornell Daily Sun 12/04 Alex Linhart There's never been a more romantic scenario for a field recordings record: Sublime Frequencies regular Tucker Martine traveled to Kela, a Jali village in Mali, in the back of a run-down taxi, recording everything from hissing insects and sweltering storms to grimy riffs and mainstream pop. Most of the live performances use the banjo-related ngoni and balafon, crafting delicate improvisations that move at a clip and wind around one another like a Fabergé swarm of locusts. Sling-shotting acoustic guitars construct mesmerizing rhythms, while soft 12-strings enfold singer Jalimusa Amanita Diabate's raspy warmth. Lasan Tougara's Fulani flute performance uses a punctuated breathing technique that hardly seems possible to these Western ears. Elsewhere, Dogon children clap and chant to greet Martine, and humming percussion whittles away at the microphone. Radios blast out frantic pop-punk and barking hustlers convince passersby to sell their souls on street corners. But the best moment (aurally and thematically) is a toaster wrestling mounds of feedback at a Bambaran wedding celebration, evoking dub calls, found sound jumbles, karaoke and frustrated emotions all at the same time.