(Twos & Fews/Drag City)

www.dragcity.com

Over the last couple of years, it seems like everyone and their mother has been jumping aboard the Afropop bandwagon, whether its Fool's Gold and Vampire Weekend mining Paul Simon's Graceland and Talking Heads' Naked for grooves or The Heliocentrics and Jimi Tenor working with such African music legends as Mulatu Astatke and Tony Allen respectively as part of Strut Records' Inspiration Information series - to actual African-based bands utilizing American sounds, like the Living Colour-inspired Blk Jks. So it should come as something of a reprieve to hear actual indigenous music from the Dark Continent garner just as much accolades in the press.

Such is the case of Ouled Bambara: Portraits of Gnawa, a stunning collection of field recordings compiled by Caitlin McNally, perhaps best known for her work on the HBO documentary The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib and also the primary filmmaker of the 30 minute DVD that accompanies this album. Named after the suite of Gnawa songs played during the entertainment portion of a ceremony common amongst this Sufi population of Morocco, the hour-long recording is rich with solo and group chanting, hand claps and homemade shakers and instruments such as the lute-like guimbri (the three-stringed instrument depicted on the cover of this album), all utilized to create a rhythmic pulse over 400 years old and said to harbor a strong element of spiritual healing within its trance-like crescendos.

And when compounded with the vivid imagery of the DVD, Ouled Bambara: Portraits of Gnawa provides an eye-opening education into a most intriguing microcosm of Sub-Saharan sound culture.

Standout Tracks: "Turku Lila", "Sheshiyat Bambara", "Chalabra Titara", "Sandiya" RON HART