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BALLAKÉ SISSOKO AND DEREK GRIPPER

by Ballaké Sissoko and Derek Gripper

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  • Streaming + Download

    Pre-order of BALLAKÉ SISSOKO AND DEREK GRIPPER. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
    Purchasable with gift card
    releases May 10, 2024

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    180gsm vinyl. Just rad.

    Includes digital pre-order of BALLAKÉ SISSOKO AND DEREK GRIPPER. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
    digital album releases May 10, 2024
    item ships out within 7 days
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  • Full Digital Discography

    24
    releases

    Get all 24 Derek Gripper releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of BALLAKÉ SISSOKO AND DEREK GRIPPER, Lost Time - Bach's First Cello Suite, Sleep Songs for My Daughter, 32 Minutes in a Boston Living Room (Live to Cassette), Billy Goes to Durban, One Night on Earth: Live in 2021, Arvo Pärt, Guy Buttery and Derek Gripper Live in Cape Town, and 16 more. , and , .

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1.
Ninkoy 07:02
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buy track
2.
Koortjie
3.
Koyé Yè Yan
4.
Maimouna
5.
Moss on the Mountain
6.
Daraka
7.
Basle

about

A meeting between instruments, not traditions. Most certainly, the dialogue between Ballaké Sissoko’s kora and Derek Gripper’s guitar is a summit between two master musicians who are operating with control and freedom at the highest peaks of their art. There are two bulls in the pen. And it is equally certain that these maestros emerge from quite different and distant musical worlds – Sissoko’s kora tradition and lineage traverse the once powerful empire known as Kaabu: located in Gambia, southern Senegal, and Guinea Bissau. Gripper’s stems from the European classical guitar. But we are not hearing these traditions in dialogue: our protagonists meet on the sonic groundings of the kora, traditionally 21-string instrument of the griots, resonant vessel of the sacred and profane, sound carrier of history and wisdom. The kraal is pitched on Sissoko’s terrain. And through two decades of commitment and study, it is to this terrain that Gripper brings the modern European guitar to meet its cousin

The two men do not share a spoken language, but if it is true that music speaks universally, then they were already involved in profound dialogue long before they met for the series of London concerts which yielded this recording session – a session which matches deep communion with sparkling improvisation, which pushes a living tradition into brand new sonic spaces, and opens a live and direct channel of communication between kora and guitar. In the complex web of themes and variations spun by Sissoko’s twenty-two strings and Gripper’s six, a new African string theory is elaborated.
“Musically we tested each other,” says Sissoko, explaining that the most magical aspect of their
encounters are spontaneity. “We have the mastery of our instruments, the technique and a good ear. Derek is very curious, that’s very important.” “He’s just such a good listener,” says Gripper about Sissoko. “It’s not what he plays, it’s how he plays
it. He’s an amazing interpreter, the prime master of timbre.”

credits

releases May 10, 2024

ALBUM CREDITS
Recording by Taylor Pollock at Platoon Studios, London
Mixed, edited and produced by Derek Gripper
Mastered by Murray Anderson at Milestone Studios, Cape Town
Produced for vinyl by Chris Albertyn and Matt Temple at Matsuli Music
Mastered for vinyl and lacquers cut by Frank Merritt at The Carvery, London

Released by Platoon and vinyl by Matsuli Music

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about

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Derek Gripper Cape Town, South Africa

Derek Gripper creates original music from his diverse influences: Toumani Diabaté, Salif Keita, Arvo Part, and Egberto Gismonti. Derek has also spent many years performing and recording his own translations of Bach’s violin and cello music, infusing his interpretations with his lessons from the oral traditions of Africa. ... more

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