TILIBO

Ibou Cissokho & Ole Andre Farstad + Sidiki Camara

Ibou Cissokho - kora, vocals, percussion
Ole Andre Farstad - acoustic guitars, xalam, baroque guitar, vocals

”In 2022 Norwegian string virtuosos Ibou Cissokho and Ole Andre Farstad got the chance to play together for the first time, and there was an instant musical connection between them that inspired the creation of this album and their duo TILIBO ( meaning: «where the sun rises»). During 2023 they met and worked on composing and arranging the music that became Woo La Ba, a diverse album based on the kora - guitar dialog, however during the 3 recording days in Duper studio they also played around and coloured the album with calabash and sabar drumming from Ibou, and nyatiti, xalam and baroque guitar from Ole, in addition to some vocal parts. Woo La Ba translates to «go deep» in Mandinka, and Tilibo draws the listener in deeply into their web of strings, melodies and rhythms that runs throughout this album”

Later, playing live, we incorporated legendary Malian percussionist Sidiki Camara into our Tilibo universe. Sidiki has been a guest artist on several tunes with Bill Frisell’s “New Quartet” and was also on the Grammy-nominated record “The Intercontinentals”, and in 2024 he himself won the Spellemannsprisen in the category Traditional Music with his album “Return to the Traditions”.