The 3rd and final volume in the critically-acclaimed “Belle Epoque” series that tells a 13-year story — from 1970 to 1983— of Mali’s legendary group. Carefully re-mastered, the tracks range from epic workouts with soaring guitars and vocals (“Wale Numa Lombaliya”) to jaunty adverts for skin cream (“Karitea”) and, as such, give a true and compelling picture of African popular music
This is the final piece in the anarchic jigsaw that is the story — as told by world-renowned producer and entrepreneur, Ibrahim Sylla — of Mali’s legendary Rail Band.

Once again we have the soaring guitars, impassioned vocals and long, compelling workouts such as “Wale Numa Lombaliya”, that were a trademark of this group. And again, in songs like the chugging locomotive of “Sinsimba’, we hear the powerful impact that Fela’s Afropop had throughout West Africa.

But now we also hear another side of this hard-working group; the jaunty pop of “Karitea”, an advert for skin cream, or the title track “Dioba that with its ‘clip clop’ rhythm seems first cousin to a Bollywood arrangement in one of the Hindi films so popular throughout Africa at the time.

Because the Rail Band was never an ‘easy’ band, never a smooth, well-oiled machine that rolled irrevocably onwards carrying all before it. In fact, if this series reveals anything, it shows just how magnificently human the whole outfit was, tensions between singers being just one of the issues. Yet maybe it was those very issues that made the group so good, because make no mistake — in Mali, in the 70s, then the Rail Band was THE band against which all others were measured. Listening to these recordings will tell you why.

There's also a 20 page booklet to accompnay your listening experience detailing the history and spin off careers for members of the Rail Band.