Soniccouture – Wassolou Balafon 2.1

French musician Jean-Philippe Rykiel told us about a unique type of African balafon, each key of which has a snare drum that vibrates when pressed, giving it an interesting buzzing sound.

Commonly found in parts of northern Ghana, Burkina Faso and southeastern Mali, the keys are made of hardwood and suspended above calabashes. The small holes in the calabashes are covered with silk or paper, which produces a characteristic buzzing sound when resonated.

Rykiel has a long history of collaborating with West African musicians, having worked with both Salif Keita and Youssou N’Dour. However, when it came to the balafon, he was familiar with a virtuoso musician from Burkina Faso named Mamadou Diabaté, who now lives in Austria. He asked Mamadou to play the instrument during a recording that he conducted.

The recordings then came to us and the result was the instrument you can see here. We hope you find this instrument interesting and inspiring!

• Added NKS controls for stereo swap, phase flip, and amp and filter scaling