My personal soundtrack
Susie | Northern California | 12/16/1999
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I listen to this cd for hours on a continuous loop at work. It's hypnotic yet complex with the African version of the sounds of the American south combined with his haunting voice. (Unfortunately I am a musical illiterate in terms of describing similar genres.) Beautiful twanging tunes and melodies. I bought it on a whim and am a complete devotee."
One of my all time favorites...
Matthieu P. Raillard | Portland, OR USA | 04/29/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Although I have owned this album for almost ten years now, I haven't gotten a chance to write a review for it, partly because it's so good and so much a part of my life that I didn't think about it. For those who don't know him, Ali Farka is a "blues" guitarist from Timbuktu, Mali, who has created one of the most unique sounds in music. One critic once described his guitar stylings as "listening to John Lee Hooker played backwards", and in a way, he was right. The rhythms are different --African, Arabic-- and the melodies unforgettable. Toure sings in a variety of languages; while I can understand the occasional French he uses, the majority are local dialects, adding a wonderful dimension to his music. I put blues in quotations marks because it isn't really blues, but that's the closest music we have to Toure's works. It's happy, melancholy, energetic, sentimental and fervently passionate all at once. This is in my opinion his best album, followed by "Talking Timbuktu" which he recorded with Ry Cooder. Check him out!"