Leni Stern

★★★★ Dance

LENI STERN. DL/LP

A veteran of Salif Keita’s band, Dance trades off Stern’s seamless mix of jazz and West African styles. While there’s a real-time physicality to Mamadou Ba’s interlocking bass, Eladji Alioune’s tumbling percussion and Leo Genovese’s swerving synths that suggests they could ride these patterns for hours, it’s Stern’s top-line guitar and expressive voice that brings their rhythmic jazz-funk into unerring focus.