The Faranas & Baba Salah — Run Run

Legendary Malian guitarist, Senegalese singer and percussionist, and eight Bernese musicians mad on jazz and African rhythms disembark with their new ecstatic album. «Run Run» is a mix of traditional rhythms, modern Malian music and a good dose of afrobeat. A recording that seals the power of an up-till-now unreleased musical project that started two years ago in Ougadougou, Burkina Faso.

A Swiss Pan-African group The vibraphonist Domink Alig first got the group together to celebrate the wonders of afrobeat in 2003. At the start it was just Fela covers, but The Faranas soon got noticed thanks to the relentless groove orchestrated by Fabian Bürgi (drums) and Toni Schiavano (long time bassist and lover of funk, hip hop and afro-brazilian music). Slamming rhythms, fiery brass section, this is big band united by a common vibration that  just sees itself in training and slowly discovers its Pan-African identity.

In 2009 The Faranas are beginning to write their own  compositions when they meet the Senegalese singer and percussionist Mory Samb living in Berne. He’s the son of the great singer Mbaye Ndiaye Samb and was trained at the school of religious singing since time. They enroll him as a percussionist but he soon starts singing. His incantational, griot voice, powerful and and fragile at the same time is full of his rich life experience. The group’s first CD featuring Mory Samb, « Who Are You ? » comes out in March 2011. The press are unanimous : « The most interesting ‘World Music’ group in Switzerland at the moment.» (World Music Special/Marianne Berna). And more : « Rarely has a such a groovebased and provocative production left a Bern recording studio.» (Der Bund, Ane Hebeisen)