Afel Bocoum Alkibar (World Circuit/Nonesuch)

Afel Bocoum

Alkibar (World Circuit/Nonesuch)

World Circuit has quickly distinguished themselves with such gems as Ali Farke Toure and Ry Cooder's decade-best Talking Timbuktu, Malian songstress Oumou Sangare's lively Worotan, and a little something called the Buena Vista Social Club. Add Malian Afel Bocoum's Alkibar to the list. Picture Dale Watson and Willie Nelson playing on the banks of the Colorado, and you'll get the gist of this 10-song, one-hour debut. Bocoum is like Watson, a young, talented singer/writer/performer, while Willie's elder statesman role is personified by Ali Farke Toure, Mali's most famous export. Toure's guitar mastery is only featured in two songs -- the Coen-Brothers-dream-sequence "Yarabitala" and the admonishing "Jaman Moro" -- but Bocoum and Toure have performed together for decades, with the student absorbing much from the maestro. Bocoum's expressive singing, punctuated guitaring, and superb choice in accompanying instruments (two-string lute, djembe, calabash drums, three singers, guitar, and spike fiddle) reveal Toure's tutelage. Think Delta blues, rural acoustic music where slinky guitar runs respond to vocal calls, like the very polyrhythmic and animated "Jeeny." Or the many-sided, swelling opener "Alasidi," where calabash drums crack beats like Sammy Davis tap dancing. Like most World Circuit studio releases, Alkibar was transparently recorded by Jerry Boys, taped out in the country by the banks of Mali's Niger River. The result is a live, breathy document of the torch passing from master to disciple.