Touré will get the viewers on to their ft

Music / Vieux Farka Touré.  At The Road Theatre, March 5. Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD.

VIEUX Farka Touré is the son of revered Malian guitarist and singer Ali Farka Touré, who died in 2012.

The elder Touré was a central determine in West African music from the ’80s onwards, creating a particular mixture of conventional Songhai tune utilizing electrical guitars as accompaniment, somewhat than the acoustic-stringed devices of the area, such because the kora and ngoni. Like his father, Vieux is a guitarist and singer in a lot he identical model and at the moment touring Australia with a bass participant and drummer.

The music is deceptively easy, the songs principally constructed round repetitive four-bar patterns that may be the melody of the tune or a easy three-note riff on the bass. Touré picks the guitar together with his thumb and two fingers, embroidering the essential riffs with a flurry of notes, the music skittering throughout the fretboard.

The live performance began with Touré enjoying acoustic guitar and the drummer with a big half gourd or calabash, intently miked, which he would thump with the heel of his hand with a sharper counterpoint from a few small drumsticks for a best rhythmic pulse. After a few songs, the acoustic guitar was swapped for the electrical, the drummer moved to his drum package and the bass participant turned up his quantity a notch or two.

The bass participant is the epitome of bass-player cool. Occasional little dance strikes with a slight smile whereas holding the music collectively and establishing a hypnotic groove. The drummer isn’t doing what Western rock drummers do, however discovering off-beats and patterns that simply mustn’t work with what the bass and guitar are doing but it surely all does. By the previous few songs a lot of the Road Theatre viewers have been on their ft and dancing to complete off a memorable night of music.