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Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Ségal, Cadogan Hall, London, gig review: Mesmeric grooves and unspoken harmony

The Malian kora maestro and experimental French cellist combine tradition to create something entirely fresh

Jochan Embley
Friday 26 May 2017 12:57 BST
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It’s a special thing when two different musical languages come together and create something unique.

The chance meeting of Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Ségal – the former a Malian kora maestro, the latter an experimental cellist from France – led to a discovery of creative kinship and has, so far, resulted in two collaborative albums, each steeped in rich heritage but truly their own, new sound.

Aside from the beautifully ornate kora, there is an unassuming look to tonight's set-up: two chairs and two instruments sit in the middle of an otherwise bare, dimly lit stage. It is fitting, though. Much of the duo’s recording was done outside Sissoko’s home in the Malian capital of Bamako with, as Ségal puts it tonight, “only the stars” watching them. It explains the title of the 2015 release, Musique de Nuit, as well as the solipsism of their performance – it’s easy to nurture that unbroken, unstated harmony when your audience is literally light years away.

​Ségal plays with a contented smile, while Sissoko rarely opens his eyes, but the delicate acoustics of tonight’s venue allow us to hear his tuneful groans as he appreciates the labyrinthine sounds they forge. On “Balazando”, the grooves are mesmeric, with an unmistakable West African flavour. While one plays rhythm, the other handles those searching improvisations. When the two collide, and it becomes difficult to tell which sound is coming from which instrument, it’s magical.

“Niandou” is propelled by rhythm, but not confined by it, as a wonderfully expansive song builds, and with “Oscarine”, off the 2009 album Chamber Music, Ségal’s cello scrapes and sings – the tension as the song races towards a climax is palpable. The entirely different moods they create throughout the course of tonight is hugely impressive – sometimes the atmosphere is serene, and sometimes disquieting, but always riveting. Long may this collaboration continue.

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