GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Marvels from Mali
TONY BURKE recommends recent releases from the epicentre of kora music and desert blues
MAKING CONNECTIONS: Ballake Sissoko
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PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
TWO years in the making, Ballake Sissoko’s Djourou (**** No Format) draws together solo compositions alongside collaborations with a number of artists including Salif Keita, leading female kora player Sona Jobarteh, cellist Vincent Segal, French rapper Oxmo Puccino, singer-songwriter Piers Faccini and Arthur Teboul, the singer from Paris rock band Feu! Chatterton.
Djourou is the Bambara word meaning string and the kora has 21 of them. The string here refers to the connection with the artists who appear on the album.
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