LOBI TRAORE – RAINY SEASON BLUES

The Malian guitarist Lobi Traoré died suddenly on June 1st, 2010, at the age of 49, not long after recording Rainy Season Blues. Featuring only his fleet-fingered acoustic guitar and rasping, woodsmoke vocals (with no overdubs), these songs and instrumentals sound at once a thousand years old and utterly new. Originally a percussionist,  he developed a technique inspired by John Lee Hooker, Angus Young (Traoré was also a distinctive electric guitarist) and the traditional music of Bamako, the city where he made his mark as an entertainer in nightclubs and at weddings. Tracks like Djougouya magni (Wickedness is not a good thing) and Alah ka bo (God is great) feature an elastic sense of time and instrumental flurries of strange modal beauty. “Every person knows where they came from but nobody knows their future,” he sings on Moko ti y lamban don (We ignore our future).The mood is one of quiet intensity and introspection, the effect hypnotic. This spare, beautiful album was recorded in a morning, but it will, I imagine, be listened to for years to come.
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