A melting pot of music and style

One doesn’t need an interpreter to decode all the animated chatter around the Malian husband-and-wife duo Amadou & Mariam.

Much has transpired since their modest debut in L.A. in 2002. They’ve been photographed by Philippe Starck, become models for French eyewear designer Alain Mikli and are receiving rave reviews for their new album, “Dimanche a Bamako.”

Simply put: They’ve finally had their breakthrough.

Hustling in from a busy day of interviews and shopping, they arrived at the Knitting Factory, a shade after 6 for a sound check with a small, chattering entourage. Singer-guitarist Amadou Bagayoko, 50, was dressed in a sharp black suit and a white shirt open at the collar, and singer Mariam Doumbia, 47, in a peach skirt-suit, the jacket cuffs and collar trimmed in satin, five of her fingers ringed in gold.

Both sported the dashing Mikli shades with aluminum frames that lend them an espionage flair. Squeezed close backstage on a busted-up love seat, they looked like an informal topper for a wedding cake.

And what did they score on their quick shopping spree? “Shoes,” Doumbia announced in English with a smile, holding out her feet proudly for viewing.

It’s a given that “overnight sensations” are seldom ever that. So too with these two, who formed their musical and romantic alliance more than 20 years ago when they met at the Institute for Young Blind People in Bamako, the capital of Mali.

“We started singing together and immediately felt chemistry. We had the same inspirations,” is how Bagayoko remembers it. They made their first recording in 1988. It’s been a long road, so they are savoring this moment.

Rapt attention

Africa and Europe, of course, have been way ahead of us: Back home, in fact, the duo is known simply as “The Blind Couple From Mali.” And the French enthusiastically boosted the new album to the top of their pop charts, buying more than 100,000 copies.

That recording, sung in French and their native tongue, Bambara, and produced “by and with” the idiosyncratic French-Spanish alt-pop star Manu Chao, has created a buzz so loud and incessant that word finally made its way to our parts.

It was word-of-mouth strong enough to pack the Knitting Factory to the rafters Monday, a crowd mixed with industry folk, those smugly in-the-know and off-the-street curious.

Last month, Nonesuch Records released a U.S. version of “Dimanche” -- a sunny, churning polyglot of rhythms, styles and found-sounds (sirens, laughing children, roaring crowds) that has already sold 7,000 copies. All of this is paired with a four-city tour of the States that has given Americans a chance to see what’s behind the buzz.

Onstage at the Knitting Factory, their African robes lent them a ministerial effect. Without the on-disc layers, the collage of samples and electronic trickery, they settled in, backed by a four-piece band.

In contrast to the squinting-fluorescence of the disc, the couple painted these songs -- raw, roots music -- in vibrant primaries. They were dynamic -- chugging through a bridge, swaying to mark a rhythm -- but not showy. They relied less on theater or big gestures than a mood or a feeling, teasing it to its peak.

Such a comfortable mood that bass player Laurent Griffon kicked off his shoes early on, then joined percussionist Boubacar Dembele in churning up a spell. Bagayoko’s and Doumbia’s voices -- fluttery, dulcet -- teased and twined, then broke away again.

Out of Bagayoko’s guitar came something starkly unusual and hauntingly familiar: Twelve-bar blues, boogie-woogie riffs, serpentine Middle Eastern allusions, the syncopated stutter-step of reggae -- all of it folding into a surging of a river of history. It’s a lesson made plain. It was a lesson of connection, a bridge between two continents.

Complex sounds

Their album, whose French title means “Sunday in Bamako,” captures the giddy spirit of coming together and of matrimony in their homeland.

“Sunday is mostly [a day] of marriage and celebration,” said Doumbia, in French, through an interpreter before the concert. “Every Sunday there is a wedding. Friends come, the parents come, everybody eats together. It’s a big party.”

Indeed, the album surges with a frenzied revelry. It’s buoyant and carbonated and jam-packed, just the way noisy, no-holds-barred celebration can be.

But it’s also a marriage of Chao’s omnivorous musical tastes with the couple’s unique, incandescent blend of Afro-pop, which has long weaved together threads of American rock, blues and funk with haunting, kaleidoscopic results.

Chao has a heavy hand in this. Mariam & Amadou’s earlier work, which is a bit more pared down and groove-based, allowed for Bagayoko’s guitar -- flitting from blues to surging, serpentine rock riffs -- to take center space.

But Bagayoko likes the challenge of this wild, DayGlo mix. He’s long drawn from a range of influences. In the ‘70s he played alongside Malian singer Salif Keita in Les Ambassadeurs du Motel, an ensemble fluent in musical genres. He’s been a fan of a diverse set of musical heroes: Eric Clapton, Alvin Lee, Stevie Wonder, James Brown with a dash of Led Zeppelin.

For all of “Dimanche a Bamako’s” layers, its unexpected twists and turns, in a way, said Bagayoko, “it’s really just business as usual. Because we are used to playing in a lot of different styles.... We wanted there to more complex sounds.”

What has also remained the same is the message. Their compositions don’t stray too far from simple themes. “Love. Justice. Peace. Getting along,” Doumbia said. They are simple wishes that seem difficult to attain, which is why, they said, they will continue preaching them.

“We are ambassadors. Our goal is to really send out messages,” Bagayoko said. “For us to be a singer is to be a messenger. They can dance afterward. But first, they must listen.”