Dimanche à Bamako (2004)
15 tracks, 57 minutes
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By this point, the blind husband and wife duo Amadou & Mariam had been slowly gaining international attention with their über-cool, extra funky Malian rock; Dimanche à Bamako tipped them over into world music superstardom.
It’s a little ironic, then, that although the album is credited to Amadou & Mariam, it would perhaps be fairer to bill it as ‘Manu Chao featuring Amadou & Mariam.’ The anarchistic French ska-punker was brought on board as a producer for this album, but he didn’t restrict himself to behind the mixing desk – he’s all over it. He contributes guitars and backing vocals to the mix as well as the programming of various samples, and he even takes on lead vocal duties on several tracks. In the end, the whole thing is much more akin to Chao’s other work than A&M’s. That’s just his way of working, too - his production on Calypso Rose’s album Far From Home (released 12 years later in 2016) has the same sort of sound.
That’s not to say this isn’t a great album, of course. I loved this album when it first came out, and must have played it to death; until I listened again in preparation to write this, I didn’t realise that I knew every track from beginning to end, but I did. I guess that in the intervening years, the Manu Chaoness of it all sort of clouded my perception of it. I’ve seen the duo live quite a few times now over the years, and I truly believe that Amadou is one of the very best guitarists I’ve ever seen, and when he gets going on a solo, all sorts of mad colours come flying out of his axe. When you have a musician like this at your disposal, why mess around with over-production? Hit record, let him do his thing, and let us hear that!
Maybe I resent Chao’s heavy-handed approach to production taking away from Amadou & Mariam’s whole thing a little bit too much. But if the album wasn’t so successful, I probably wouldn’t have heard of them at all (or had my exposure to them delayed at least). And besides, it is still almost an hour’s worth of good music regardless of whose sound it is or isn’t. Gotta accentuate that positive – the album is good, enjoy it.
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