The balafon's keys are made of fired hardwood, with hollow calabashes the size of oranges underneath them. The sounds it makes vary widely. In "Keito," Koné draws pillowy torrents from it, while on "Bayaga," a descriptive number about the beaded waistbands worn by African women (as in cowrie shells and colored glass with wire and screw clasps, not the fourteen-carat gold and diamond charmers sold in American stores), he makes it produce a playfully whistling tune similar to a flute. Invariably, each of his balafon solos is a brain massage.