Recording of the Week, Sissoko Segal Parisien Peirani - Les Égarés

This intriguing record finds two well-established duos combining into a quartet, for a remarkably delicate and moving set of tunes. Kora player Ballaké Sissoko and cellist Vincent Segal have been performing together for a couple of decades, releasing 2009’s Chamber Music to international acclaim. The combination of Sissoko’s spine-tingling kora with Segal’s open-minded approach to cello (he’s worked extensively with pop and hip hop artists such as Elvis Costello, Blackalicious, as well as his own trip-hop project Bumcello) is unique, effectively defining their own genre. Likewise, saxophonist Emile Parisien and accordionist Vincent Peirani have thousands of concerts under their belts, and have honed their own, often tango-infused, soundworld to perfection. Bringing the two groups together makes sense tonally, as one is string-based, the other (broadly speaking) wind, allowing for some truly novel timbres.

There’s little point trying to pin down ‘Les Égarés’ to any specific genre, although it touches upon European jazz, folk and African music, as the music arises so unselfconsciously from the players. It’s also noticeable how comfortably the musicians sit with each other, as is immediately clear on Sissoko’s ‘Ta Nyé’, which has a really open-aired feel to it, the soloists arising out of the collective like clouds passing in a clear blue sky. Segal, Parisien and Peirani often drop in and out of maintaining a subtle drone, giving the sense of ever-shifting colours, as can be heard in the first couple of minutes on Peirani’s ‘Izoa’, before Sissoko stirs things up with a flurry of notes. Unsurprisingly the most ‘jazzy’ moment on the album is a brisk take of Joe Zawinul’s ‘Orient Express’, with the group switching between holding down the rhythmic chug, then stepping out for solos - most notably Parisien’s slower, Eastern-tinged saxophone adding to the depth-of-field of the view as we’re whisked through the countryside. ‘Nomad’s Sky’ sounds exactly as you would expect, transporting the listener next to a campfire, gazing up at a vast canopy of stars above.

Throughout the set the engineers provide detailed and translucent sonics, with the group nicely positioned within the stereo picture, leaving the listener feeling like they’re sat in front of live musicians. Segal’s ‘La Chanson des Egarés’ (The Song of the Lost) evokes renaissance harp music, whilst the group tango quietly with themselves on the peppy ‘Esperanza’, and Sissoko bookends the set with ‘Banja’, another sparse composition that leaves the impression of the group winding down after covering so many different moods and textures on this lovely album.