Customer Reviews

Niafunke

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ali Farka Toure is in his own element on this recording, offering a stripped down version of his plaintive music that evokes so many comparisons. Toure himself put the shoe on the other foot by saying that John Lee Hooker is a Malian at heart. One can hear a resonance in these two voices, but the music is very different. Toure comes from a strong Islamic as well as African tradition, and this music very much reflects that.

Toure was disappointed by some of the collaborative efforts he did, Taj Mahal in particular. He had a hard time fitting his music into the Blues mold producers wanted him to do. Scorcese makes the same mistake in his opening film in the PBS series, getting Toure to play along with Corey Harris, but you can see that his heart is not in it. Toure is very much his own man and this CD is the most representative of his personal feelings about music.

Ali Farka Toure's "Niafunke" is one great album, showcasing the West African approach to the guitar, and proving that Toure is getting better with each passing year. It was genius to avoid the homogenization of "world" music by recording this CD in Mali, near home, with local musicians. The music can be described as a sort of "Sahara blues", a mix of North and West African traditional music and American blues, but there's much more to it than that. Play this CD, be taken away by it, listen to the voices and instruments (African drums and strings), and you'll agree with Toure, who says that "Timbuktu [is] right at the heart of the world."

The most important thing to understand about this recording is the genuineness of Toure's claim to be be playing Malian music first, and American blues second. Toure is not the Malian John Lee Hooker. He plays the music of his land, with it's time, steps, paces, thoughts and wishes. It is trite and simple to say that Blues comes from Africans therefore . . . Toure is a deceptively simple introduction to African music. If you allow yourself to be lulled, fooled into thinking you have heard this before and it fits into your pre-built structure of music, you are missing some, maybe not most, of the spirit of this album. It rewards opening out. One day every listener, true listener, will allow themselves to hear the foreigness of this amazing album, and the rewards will have just begun.

Dear Ry Cooder, thanks so much for being the route in to so much great music from around the world. Loved Buena Vista Social Club, Meeting Across the River showed indian music in a different light, and Talking Timbuktu introduced us to the blues of Ali Farka Toure.

But, Ry, Ali does it even better when you're not there. He recorded this album at home in Niafunke, after working in the fields all day. It's more stripped-down than your collaboration with him, but actually it gains from that (I still love your bottleneck, don't fear).

I'm sure you of all people, Ry, will appreciate the purity of the sound, its simplicity and connection with place. There's still the same blues element that we found so amazing, given the different roots of the music, but somehow it transports us in a different way without your guitar in the background. This album is at once downhome blues, lyrical and mesmerising.

So thanks, Ry, for taking us there in the first place, and thanks, too, for leaving Ali to show us his best style - pure and simple.

I don't think I've ever heard music so personal, heartfelt, and intimate. It's almost as though I'm inside Ali Farka Toure. Niafunke stirs me with rhrythm, hypnotizes me with an undescribable deepness, and leaves me smiling that I'm here grooving with him in the Mali desert. This CD is a paradox...on one hand it's sound is unlike anything I've heard before, and on the other hand it's like an old friend that I know as well as my brother. Rootsy, improvisational, melodic, stunning. A timeless masterpiece.

Ali Farka Toure uses western instrument to come up with very un-western sounds. While he uses an electric guitar (these tracks are my favourites), the sound he coaxes from it is unknown to Jimi, Chuck, B.B., or John Lee. This guy stands on his own. If you can deal with the African style of singing, sometimes a bit grating to western ears, this disc is a fascinating meld of traditional idiom and contemporary instruments.

I bought this CD purely by accident and really liked the beat and the guitar of some of the songs. My favourite is "allah uya". Some of the songs are a bit drag to western ear but overall I think this is a very good CD and very different from the everyday Anerican radio station stuff.

After 5 years of nothing from Ali Farka Toure he creates the best c.d. i have bought this year. I was pleasntly surprized when i heard this c.d. for the first time.

I was browsing the international section at the local book store, and I just bought niafunke only after hearing the first three songs. I then bought In the Heart of the Moon, which I have to say is equal to or better than niafunke, because of tumani. I have never wanted to try to emulate an artists sound when I make my own music, but after listening to Ali's music I have tried to capture his sound mixed with my own and have created my first song that has been majorly influenced by one artist. i highly recommend diverse international music. Ali Farka Toure is one you need to have.

I'll start off by saying I love this cd! I gave NIAFUNKE 4 stars only because I heard that Afel Bocoum's cd (ALKIBAR) blows this one away but I have not heard it as of yet. This way if Afel's cd does indeed blow this one away (which may or may not be true, but it's tough for me to imagine) I can rate both cds accordingly.

Ali Farka Toure always gets labeled as "The African John Lee Hooker" but that doesn't do him or his music any justice. It must have been written by a lazy and creatively-stunted music critic. I prefer to think of his music as "Saharan subsistence-farmer electro-acoustic desert-river blues", and this cd is a classic example. Ali has had some watered-down-by-Westerners cds (like with Ry Cooder) but for this one the liner notes say he had taken a break from performing to Western audiences and had been living his traditional Malian agricultural life again. It did wonders for the music he makes. The African soil and spirit is in his music once again.

This music on this cd is a perfect melding of the traditional music of Ali's heritage and the blues, it is derivative of neither and creatively uses both. And don't get me started on his electric guitar tone, it is glorious! Their seems to be an underlying scream to some of his notes yet his electric guitar work never turns to raunch or obnoxiousness like some American "blues guitarists" are known for, although I consider Ali to be a genre to himself. "Blues guitarist" just doesn't categorize him at all. He is so much more.