Amadou and Mariam, musicians from Mali who are now based in France, have released a video for their new album's title track, “La Confusion.” Fittingly enough, this earworm of a song might just make you go “Huh?”
Their story has been told many times over: both musicians lost their vision at a young age and met at Mali's Institute for the Young Blind. They managed to parlay this meeting into both a life partner and musical collaborator, marrying and teaming up to make music in the '80s. They recorded in Mali and Côte d'Ivoire, eventually finding success after a move to France, and making a big breakthrough in the United States with 2004's Dimanche á Bamako and its hit single, “Sénégal Fast Food.”
But “La Confusion”—the track and maybe the whole album—seems to be building on a sound the band forged on the 2008 recording, Welcome to Mali, which added glossy synths over Amadou's loping guitar lines. The new song could even pass as some sort of neo-new wave track—a kind of Afro-blues take on A-Ha or Depeche Mode. Although there could be something else going on—I could just be confused.
La Confusion the album comes out Sept. 22, 2017 on Because Music.
