Having conquered France, this Malian duo are closing in on the British market Welcome to Mali Amadou and Mariam

Taking on the world

With their catchy, soulful, bluesy vocals, Amadou and Mariam, the singing duo from Mali, have been slowly but surely seeping into the world's consciousness over the past few years. This was helped dramatically by their breakthrough album, Dimanche à Bamako (2005), which sold more than half a million copies and reached number two in the French charts. Last year, they supported New York's Scissor Sisters when they toured the UK.

While Dimanche à Bamako was produced by Manu Chao, which certainly helped the pair's profile across the Channel, their new album, Welcome to Mali, has an eye to the anglophone market. This time, they have drafted in Damon Albarn, who has collaborated with them for his Africa Express project (reviewed in the NS of 10 November).

"Sabali", the opening track and first single, exploits two widely spaced registers of Mariam's voice, electronically filtered to give it a distant, other-worldly sound. It is produced by Albarn and features him on keyboards, bass and "programmation". As the track gets going, Mariam's voice becomes surrounded by swirling keyboard arpeggios. "Avec toi, chéri," she sings, "la vie est belle."

Most of Amadou and Mariam's songs are love songs to each other, or to their country. They may have reached a wider public only relatively recently, but the couple have been making music together for 30 years. Both in their fifties, they met in 1977 at the Institute for the Young Blind in Bamako, the capital of Mali, where Amadou Bagayoko was first struck by Mariam Doumbia's voice. From 1974-80, Amadou was a member of Les Ambassadeurs, one of Mali's most popular guitar bands, backing the legendary singer Salif Keita, among others. Keita was a fan of Jimi Hendrix and John Lee Hooker as well as Malian musicians, which goes some way to explaining Amadou's rich style of playing. Mariam, meanwhile, admired James Brown, Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd. The couple are not, as Malian culture dictates, hereditary griots; neither do they play "traditional" compositions. They were always interested in a wider world of urban and pop music.

Their recording career began in the 1980s in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, which was then the hub of the West African record industry. They were marketed, rather bluntly, as "the Blind Couple from Mali". In 1997, their cassette releases led to a recording contract in France with Polygram, for whom they released three albums, and they started touring widely. Manu Chao discovered them thanks to hearing one of their songs on his car radio while driving round the Paris périphérique. There was a charm, but also a certain sameness about their releases until he took over production for Dimanche à Bamako. Also co-written with Chao, the album featured a broad range of global sounds, recorded effects and slick, laid-back production. It was vivid and cinematic, and boasted a number of memorable songs.

The production on Welcome to Mali is also slick and sophisticated, though I miss Chao's larger-than-life contributions. Perhaps in an attempt to compensate for his absence, the producers present a number of guests - including the Somali-born rapper K'naan for the "original west coast/east coast collaboration" on "Africa" as well as the Nigerian-born singer and guitarist Keziah Jones on "Unissons Nous" - though neither track makes a lasting impression.

More striking are the songs that bring in new instrumental sounds, such as the punchy bass clarinet on "Magosa" and the sax on "Compagnon de la Vie", or the Malian instruments such as the balafon, kora and one-string fiddle that create the texture on "Magosa" (certainly one of the stand-out tracks), "Djuru" and "Bozos", named after the fisherfolk of the Niger.

The producers Marc-Antoine Moreau and Laurent Jaïs have given Welcome to Mali a different sound from any other Amadou and Mariam album and it will probably have a wide appeal. Yet, despite the busy production, I miss the naive soul of their older albums and the colour of Dimanche à Bamako.

"Welcome to Mali" (Because) is out now. www.amadou-mariam.com

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