This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Ry Cooder fans may recall Ali Farka Toure from Talking Timbuktu, their Grammy-winning 1994 album that bridged the gap between Delta blues and world music.
Now, finally, the desert bluesman has returned to the studio. Actually, the studio went to him; this CD was recorded with a portable studio and a generator in his remote village in Mali. That setting comes through in the music; Naifunké displays less of an American influence — the chiming, stacatto picking that prompted comparisons to Robert Johnson surfaces only occasionally here — in favour of a more African feel that relies on droning circular guitar lines which overlap and play off each other like ritual chants. World music at its finest.
