Amadou & Mariam

Welcome to Mali – recorded in Bamako, Dakar, Paris and London and produced with longtime manager Marc-Antoine Moreau – is less high-concept travelogue than straightforward set, yet it proves to be even more adventurous and exuberantly rocking. Albarn briefly joins the pair, co-producing and co-writing opening track "Sabali," as ingeniously arranged as the best of his work with the Gorillaz and featuring Mariam's almost otherworldly vocals over swirls of disco-style keyboards. Amadou has long spoken of his affection for classic rock – Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, the Beatles, the Stones – and it shows in his playing; London's Independent calls Welcome to Mali "a rock album with an African Heart." There’s a bit of Yardbirds-era swinging London, keyboard arrangements that wouldn’t be out of place in a Parisian disco, hip hop breaks from Toronto-based Somalian rapper K'naan and the occasional garage-rock riff, as well as traditional touches courtesy of fellow Malian Toumani Diabaté and his magical kora playing. A deep undercurrent of the blues, an arguably indigenous Malian sound that migrated to the Mississippi delta, runs through the disc. Says Uncut, "Amadou's slithering, grinding guitar riffs sound dark and spiky, the missing link between Ali Farka Touré and Steve Cropper."

Welcome to Mali is an invitation from this extraordinary pair to look for the familiar in the seemingly exotic. As Pitchfork Media put it, "This album is an affirmation of global connectivity and an emerging global culture that transcends and repurposes tradition as it sees fit – the sound of Mali merging with the world at large."