BAABA MAAL Vinyl & CDs

Review: Senegalese favourite Baaba Maal is a unique kind of artist, having come up in his local music circuit with a bang, but not easily fitting in with an easily pinnable niche. The artist has made a steady name for himself for mixing sounds that could be described as desert blues and chant-driven uplifts, drawing on both local and international traditional music. Whether you speak Pulaar or not, its undercurrents of spirituality and optimism are more than evident, an effect achieved as much by Maal's singing and guitar-playing as it is by the efforts of producer Johan Karlberg. Excitable elements of trap and nighttime folk, backed by the quiet trill of crickets, unfurl across the album, evoking the awe of life through immeasurably wide and dense textures.