Kanazoé Orkestra's balafons and tech driven Burkinabe music

Seydou Diabaté had little choice but to follow his family's griot tradition in Burkina Faso and become a solo balafon player. Failing to attend school, the instrument became the focus of his learning, first through his father, then after he died when the boy was only ten years old, under the guidance of his uncle. Diabaté began playing with local bands and singers in the city of Bobo-Dioullasso before moving to France in the early 2010s and, going under the name of Kanazoé, formed his own band, the Kanazoé Orkestra. Balabeatz is their fourth album and the music on it has a distinctly contemporary feel, but deeply rooted in Burkinabé and Mandinka heritage.

“Balan” sets the pace for a series of tracks which are mostly upbeat, incorporating production values influenced by the Afrobeats sounds coming out of Nigeria and Ghana, but with the balafon remaining at centre stage. In fact much of the time on Balabeatz there are two balafons to be heard, one played by Seydou “ Kanazoé” Diabaté, the other by Mamadou “Madou” Dembélé, the latter also contributing some flute and guitar along the way. Both men provide backing vocals, with Losso Keïta leading the singing. The six-piece band is completed by Martin Etienne on keyboards, Emilio Rudoy bass and Laurent Planells on hybrid drums.

Amid the ubiquitous presence of guitars and keyboards in world roots music, along with western brass, woodwind and other string instruments, the balafon is one of the relatively few localized traditional instruments to hold its own alongside them, adapting to changing times and tastes. Along with the kora, and to some extent the ngoni, the balafon has established itself as the widely recognizable sound of West African music. A forerunner of the marimba and the xylophone, it has shown, as it does here, that it can effectively complement or lead the sound of a range of other instruments, old and new.

By no means is everything uptempo. “Jeunesse” is slower and gentle with a fine expressive vocal from Keïta, soaring over the interlocking note patterns from the two balafon-players, both intermittently contributing repeated vocal lines. The vocal content deals with social, cultural and global issues. According to Kanazoé “We talk about things like our children, about ecology, about how we are going to leave something for the children tomorrow. We try to give advice. In any case, we don't play music by itself.”

Throughout the album the underlying rhythms blend drumming and percussion with programmed beats and sounds, while bass player Emilio Rudoy often takes a melodic approach, either playing in unison with the others or providing a counterpoint. “Dabara” begins with just the balafons and vocals before bass and drums kick in, along with some fairly minimal keyboard. Towards the end of the track, everything drops down as Rudoy takes a short bass solo, with the balafons providing support before they all state the riff together to take things to a conclusion.

“Balan Diabou,” the shortest track on the album at less than two minutes, features just the balafon, enhanced by a rich process electronic wizardry, to create, while it lasts, a vast, unworldly soundscape. Yet while Balabeatz is characterized by its combination of traditional playing and studio technology, it is the strength of Kanazoé Orkestra's musical ideas, driven by some fine playing, that brings it all together in a rather wonderful way.