Due West by Althea SullyCole

Due West is the culmination of multi-instrumentalist Althea SullyCole’s fourteen years studying the kora, a twenty-one stringed harp from the Mandé region of West Africa (encompassing present-day Mali, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and the Gambia). The tracks that constitute Due West are songs that Althea has collected travelling across three continents (Africa, Europe and North America) with the instrument. From “Alalake,” a song at the heart of the kora tradition, to original meditation “Middle Passage,” the album traces routes across the Black Atlantic in modes, rhythms and collaborations that are the reflection of Althea’s unique imagination as a kora player.

Althea SullyCole is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and ethnomusicologist originally from New York City, currently based in Montreal, QC, where she is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. Althea studied her primary instrument, the kora, a 21-stringed West African harp, under korists Yacouba Sissoko and Edou Manga.

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