Bombino is a singer-songwriter and guitarist from Niger, with his own take on desert blues. He has a rock-star image and sets out to target indie-rock fans as well as African music devotees. There’s nothing wrong with that, as new fusion exponents from Songhoy Blues to Vieux Farka Touré have proved, and he’s a rousing live performer. But his recordings are far less exciting. His last album, produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, was pleasant but unremarkable, and this new set shows little progress, though his new American producer Dave Longstreth has compared him to “a latter-day Robert Johnson or Chet Baker”. Well, he’s an efficient musician who can mix echoes of Tinariwen and Farka Touré with a dash of reggae, and switch between romping electric blues and reggae to acoustic styles. But for much of this set he sounds as if he’s on autopilot.
