DESERT BLUES FROM TIMBUKTU

This is beautiful--just listen to this snakey bluesline from Mali and you can hear the sounds of Africa and the Mississippi Delta crawling across the land like a giant Kingsnake. This is Desert Blues, a music project with Habib Koité, Afel Bocoum and the Tuareg Women Ensemble Tartit from Timbuktu. These African musicians are poets and play the traditional instruments like the Tinde, Tehardant, Balafon, Imzad -- and some electric guitars, too. Timeless and mysterious, like nothing you've ever heard before but somehow strangely familiar.