Maher Cissoko - Kora Fo (2017)

Born into a legendary griot family in Casamance, Senegal, for the past decade Maher Cissoko has been resident in Sweden, where he has made three albums with the Swedish-born female singer and kora player Soussou Cissoko. Kora Fo is his first solo album and represents what he admits his traditionalist father would call ‘the young generation's kora playing.’ The title translates as ‘The Kora Speaks’ but so, too, does Maher with some eloquence. The compositions are all his own rather than handed-down griot tunes and he plays them with a delightfully light and feathery touch. Although he's a virtuoso, he's not trying here to imitate the dense, classical meditations of, say, Toumani Diabaté's Mande Variations, or to dazzle us with impossibly complex arpeggios. These are airy, fluttering, very personal songs about love, freedom and remembrance sung in a soft, sweet troubadour voice of great delicacy. There's an almost evanescent quality, which is not to say that the music is forgettable; it has such a lightness that the songs seem about to fly away with the bird on the wing that he sings about so beguilingly on the opening track ‘Kunoo’.

Tracklist:
1 01. Maher Cissoko - Kunoo (05:07)
1 02. Maher Cissoko - Lannayaa (03:06)
1 03. Maher Cissoko - Kooma Kumaro (05:17)
1 04. Maher Cissoko - Sama (03:55)
1 05. Maher Cissoko - M Be Kiling (04:11)
1 06. Maher Cissoko - Kora Fo (05:16)
1 07. Maher Cissoko - Mame Diarra (07:49)
1 08. Maher Cissoko - Bii Lee Siita (04:39)
1 09. Maher Cissoko - Pardon Madame (03:50)
1 10. Maher Cissoko - Kora by Night (03:45)
1 11. Maher Cissoko - Suutoo Yé Diyaa (03:51)
1 12. Maher Cissoko - Kooma Kumaro (Instrumental) (04:40)