Tuki

"This collection of 13 tracks by Oslo-based Gambian percussionist N'Doye seems low-key at first, but it's a grower. Working in small groupings with sensitive collaborators, he builds a sound-world that slowly worms its way into your consciousness. Many of the tunes … are driven by repetitive, pulsed motifs from N'Doye's kalimba. Some feature Per Jorgensen's trumpet; most feature Jon Balke's keyboards, but the Norwegian musician's contributions are mixed low to foreground the leader's busy, characterful percussion and voice."
- John L. Walters, The Guardian

"N'Doye composes on the iron-tongued kalimba thumb piano, his hypnotic variations throbbing and buzzing into a vast and numinous sound field across which Per Jorgensens's searing trumpet lines cut a plangent counter-swathe. If N'Doyes drumming and verbal extemporisations are often unremarkable in themselves, the sheer severity of the album's sonic conception, with its discordant incursion of John Cage-style prepared piano, creates an entrancing Afro-minimalist feel that you certainly won't be encountering anywhere else."
- Mark Hudson, Daily Telegraph

Born in Gambia in 1944, Miki N'Doye has been playing drums for more than half a century. He is an African master-drummer. When he arrived in Norway in 1976, he quickly became part of the local scene, a central figure in countless jam sessions. He also famously played with Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell in the early 1980s. He has played with virtually every Scandinavian musician of importance and many of them have passed through his bands. Miki's groups E'Olen, Tamma and Sabba brought a blast of West African energy to the music of the North.
Jon Balke has been an associate of Miki N'Doye for almost 30 years and was a member of Miki's E'Olen band. Miki contributed to Balke's ECM projects 'Nonsentration' with Oslo 13 and 'Statements' with the Batagraf group, released last autumn. Balke is co-producer on Tuki. He also lends his very subtle keyboard colourations to the project, and creates ambient soundscapes for Miki N'Doye.

At the centre of the sound is N'Doye's kalimba (thumb piano), his tamma and m'balax drums, and his vocals - singing songs both based on traditional tunes and improvised in the moment, and with two other Gambian singers - Lie Jallow and Auly Sosseh - offering occasional backing vocals. The band here is completed by two members of Balke's Magnetic North group: trumpeter Per Jørgensen and percussionist Helge Norbakken. Jørgensen's trumpet provides pensive commentary throughout and Norbakken supports N'Doye's lead drums.