I for one can’t wait to see Toumani Diabaté opening Bjork’s rolling cultural revue at the cavernous (for me at least; I’m feeling agoraphobic at the thought of it) Hammersmith Apollo next week.  I’m going to be jostling with the colourfully-dressed mobile-waving kids down the front to get a glimpse of this nimble-fingered wizard of the kora.  If the end result of his appearance there is that a few extra people go home with a copy of Diabaté’s first-rate Mandé Variations, then that can only be good for humankind as a whole, I reckon.  

Within these eight tracks Diabaté employs a variety of tunings (including one he appears to have invented, the “Egyptian tuning”), and mixes the traditional music of his homeland with some, well, less traditional elements.  As well as some Malian pieces which has adapted from the versions he heard his father play, there a couple of tracks named after North London streets, one of which is inspired by those most revered maestros of Caribbean musical forms – that’s right, UB40: “Elyne Road” emanates from Diabaté’s memories of  their “Kingston Town”.  The other road, “Cantelowes”, begins with an unmistakeable and momentarily jarring snatch of Morricone’s “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”, before it turns back out of the desert and somehow becomes the most lovely of love songs.  My favourites, however, are a couple of astonishing seemingly-improvised pieces which are fast-flowing cascades of invention, one of which is named after Diabaté’s late friend and sometime collaborator, the great guitarist Ali Farka Toure.   I’m pretty sure he would approve.  

This is naggingly insidious and maddeningly addictive music; after a dozen listens I’m no closer to unravelling how Toumani Diabaté’s two hands can spin all these concurrent lines of melody and bass. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to find out next week; no doubt I’ll return still none the wiser.  

Listen to more and buy a copy over at World Circuit.