Most of the afternoon was taken up with elaborate soundchecks, the musicians fine-tuning their instruments with the sound engineer. For that evening's show was to be an important one, part of a "work in progress" that will be used as a basis for the studio recording of Rokia's upcoming album.

Rokia's mini-tour, organised in a low-key way in eight different towns across France, could be compared to the series of test trials carried out on Formula 1 cars at the start of racing season – a chance to tackle any last-minute hitches before the Rokia machine hits the studio full throttle ahead. Rokia, it seems, is in the mood for change. The singer could have been content to crest the wave of success generated by her third album, Bowmboï, released in 2003 that ended up earning her a gold disc for sales. But she claims she is not "at all interested in lying back on my laurels and just churning out the same old thing over and over again!" The Malian dynamo, who won RFI's "Découverte" award in 1998, has gone on to become one of the hottest African acts on the international scene. But this has not stopped her yearning for "change", "innovation" and the "desire to do things completely differently."  

This ardent desire for change has manifested itself in the form as much of the content of Rokia's new work. Up until now, the singer has always recorded her material in the studio then gone out on the road and presented new songs to fans. But this time round, she has inversed the two processes, taking her songs out on the road before the studio and submitting them to the litmus live test. In the run-up to her mini "pre-tour", Rokia spent ten intensive days rehearsing her newly-fledged songs with her group, whose line-up has also been reworked to suit her new compositions. 

Eager to present a new facet of her personality and a new side to her music, Rokia experimented with a totally different style of orchestration on her new album, parting company with the balafon which has played such a central role in her sound up to now. She has kept the ngoni (a traditional string instrument from Mali), but cut back to using a single instrument, thus making room for drums this time round which, she insists, she wanted to be "melodic, not just rhythmic." She found the style she was looking for in drummer Chander Dath, one of the new recruits in her line-up together with Adama Kone, an experienced guitarist Rokia had already worked with earlier in her career.

Fired up with evident enthusiasm for her new project, Rokia admits she is also thrilled to be playing at smaller venues "on a more human scale", the kind of places she performed in when she was just starting out in France. Fans turned out to see her in force in Orléans (as they did at the other stops on her mini-tour) and a hush descended as Rokia kicked off her show with an intimate a cappella. But once her backing band joined her up on stage, it was 'au revoir' to soft acoustics as Rokia wrenched on the gearstick and unleashed some real horsepower, bass and drums powering her new sound along for all they were worth.

"I think I may get to like this new sound," the singer declared back stage after the show, "It's very frank, very sincere, very direct and there's no artifice involved at all. Maybe this is the kind of album I'll end up making in the studio!" Fans will just have to wait a few months for the final result but, judging by what we glimpsed in Orléans, the new Rokia Traore will be bigger and better than ever!

Bertrand Lavaine