Production of new album by Samba Touré

Mark Mulholland spent much of last winter arranging and producing “Baarakelaw”, the new album by the legendary Malian guitarist and singer-songwriter Samba Touré. The tracks were recorded in Bamako by Philippe Sanmiguel under near impossible circumstances, due to the power crisis in Mali which was getting progressively worse – there were only a few hours of electricity supply each day, but you never knew at what time. Whenever there was electricity, Philippe, Samba and the other musicians would work frantically to get as much done as possible before the power went off again

Philippe did a great job of capturing the basic tracks, then asked Mark to finish the job (with the luxury of constant electricity). He enlisted the help of Stéphane Doucerain, Matt de Harp, Olaf Hund and Sean Condron, and added some light touches of guitars, keys, drums, electronics and harmonica, always trying to make sure that any additions were supporting the essential elements of the songs recorded by Samba and the others, and sending mixes and suggestions back and forth.

The album was released on January 24th on Glitterbeat Records, and has been getting great reviews – Uncut called it “Gorgeous…deceptively gentle. Never less than hypnotic”.