A jewel–like recording from the singular Senegalese crooner, whose tremulous voice, both delicate and strong, weaves through 10 original tracks. It's the first album in five years for Lô, a dreadlocked follower of the Sufi Muslim Baye Fall who burst onto the scene in 1996 with his mesmerising international debut, Ne La Thiass, then worked intermittently with the likes of Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen and saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis before disappearing again. Balbalou presents a more confident, open take on Lô's trademark sound, which mixes hard driving mbalax polyrhythms with Jamaican reggae and the Afro-Cuban grooves beloved of West Africa since the 1930s. Lô's voice, variously husky, languid and impassioned, tells – in Wolof and Bambara – of corruption and coups d’état, of the importance of peace, love and spirituality. Brazilian bossa-muffin singer Flavia Coehlo and Paris-based accordionist Fixi lend light and colour to lead track, ‘Degg Gui’; the great Malian diva Oumou Sangaré guests on ‘Doyal Naniou’; ever-questing Lebanese trumpet player Ibrahim Maalouf gives the funky title track a spacey edge. Recommended.