Television [Digipak]

Performer: Baaba Maal
Producer: Baaba Maal; Barry Reynolds
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Baaba Maal (vocals, guitar); Sabina Sciubba (vocals); Barry Reynolds (guitar); Simon Clarke (saxophone); Didi Gutman (keyboards); Jim Palmer (drums, percussion); Massamba Diop (percussion). Audio Mixer: Jerry Boys. On TELEVISION, Baaba Maal collaborates with Didi Gutman and Sabina Sciubba of New York's Brazilian Girls to fashion an album that combines subtle electronica with his own kind of Senegalese pop. The album took three years to record, and one track, the softly percolating dance tune "International," appeared the previous year on the Brazilian Girls CD NEW YORK CITY. The album opens with the title track, a Maal/Brazilian Girls collaboration. A muted guitar figure that sounds like a music box floats below a funky samba-like beat. The African percussion embroiders the mix without overwhelming the bouncy club pulse. "Tindo" blends a drum loop, talking drum, and electric bass to propel the subtle intertwining vocals of Maal and Sciubba. "Miracle" sounds like South African jive. Long sustained electric guitar notes introduce this lilting, happy dance tune and Maal and Sciubba turn in a playful duet that skims across the glittering surface of the music. "Cantaloupe" was written by Maal, Gutman, and Barry Reynolds, the guitar player with the legendary Compass Point studio band. The melody has the Latin/Caribbean feel typical of American '30s movie musicals, while Maal contributes a traditional Senegalese vocal. A programmed rhythm track starts about midway through, to add a modern element to another laid-back track. The album closes with two simmering acoustic tracks.

Dirty Linen (p.63) - "Maal's African roots remain evident, while other influences, ranging from Celtic whistling to flamenco guitar playing and European dance music, provide flavor." Paste (magazine) (p.53) - "TELEVISION embodies the sound of the African future while simultaneously nodding over its shoulder at the pain, joy, suffering and beauty of the continent's past."

One of Senegal's most important musicians, singer-songwriter Baaba Maal works with a rich palette of sounds, mixing West African folk music, pop, hip-hop, and reggae with spiritual and politically charged lyrics. Along with his countryman Youssou N'Dour, he has been instrumental in bringing modern African music to the world stage. His first recordings from the 1980s, with guitarist Mansour Seck, explored traditional Senegalese music, but by the mid '80s Maal had formed the expansive band Dande Lenol ("Voice of the Race"), which incorporated a plethora of world influences, and worked with numerous big names in pop and African music.

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