I’m pleased to report that the expression “like father like son” becomes more applicable to Vieux Farka Touré with each album he makes. But perhaps I should qualify that statement. It’s not about Vieux slavishly imitating the legendary Malian blues man’s unique guitar style, or becoming in any way a tribute act. But what The Secret represents is a certain maturing of his style and a noticeable calming down of his dependence on the kind of rock clichés and histrionics that can still mar his live performances.
Also there are fewer nods towards hip hop or the dance floor. Instead the emphasis is on measured fluidity and widescreen grandeur. In other words, if we continue to draw parallels with Ali Farka Touré’s style, Vieux is more epic than intimate, although this has as much to do with the production as the music. For example, the backing vocals have a cathedral ambience which lends grandeur to the overall sound while leaving the foreground space for the circling guitars and insistent percussion to tussle and joust.
However, aside from Malian traditional music, rock is still inarguably the primary reference point. Take the song “Gidd”. It rides out on a single chord, full of unresolved tensions, contained energy and spiky interjections of solo guitar, before eventually resolving itself in a Led Zep-esque descending chord progression.
But Ali Farka Touré fans will probably skip straight to the simply but affectingly titled “Ali” to hear father and son – thanks to the magic of multitracking - playing together on one of Ali’s last recordings before he died. It’s ostensibly a simple song that churns slowly on a fulcrum of intermeshed guitars to the slow heartbeat of a calabash. But the Devil is in the textural details rather than the linear development. The Secret is largely an album that is both powerful and soothing; a balm and a boost. It strongly evokes the traditional while simultaneously sounding wholly contemporary: no mean achievement.
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