Ali Farka Toure: Red & Green

Herald rating: * * *

Mali singer-guitarist Toure sprang briefly into attention in the mid-90s with the groundbreaking album Talking Timbuktu, which paired him with Ry Cooder.

Toure has long been a favourite of Western musicians - he has recorded with various Chieftains and Taj Mahal - because his sound is steeped in elements of the blues and has invited comparisons with John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins. Those references are an oversimplification because Toure's style is distinctively from the Tuareg culture, as these two early albums attest.

Red (from 84) and Green (88) have a lean and rudimentary sound of mostly just voice, guitar and simple percussion. Toure's unusual guitar-work is the hook. There are undeniable elements of proto-blues, but as Toure tickles the microtones and bends notes, this is also the link to North African music as befits a people whose camel-train culture takes them across the Sahara to Algeria and Libya.

At the time of recording, Toure was semi-retired and these albums - here repacked in a slipcase with colourful booklet of lyrics and an essay by his champion Andy Kershaw of BBC's Radio 3 - were made for British consumption rather than being delivered with a sheen and guest-list designed to appeal to Womad audiences. They have an undiluted musical power and the allure of the mysterious and exotic that is undiminished by time.

Label: World Circuit/Elite