WORLD music is a label to turn off some listeners - and what a crying shame that is if it shuts their ears to music as beguiling as this.

It's not particularly helpful anyway, covering as it does virtually any music from around the globe, usually traditional in style, but not always.

Ali Farka Tour and Toumani Diabat, African superstar musicians from Mali, came together to record one track and, such was the buzz between them, they ended up with enough material for a whole album - the first either had recorded for five years.

Ali is a guitarist and singer (although his voice is almost silent here) and Toumani plays the kora or West African harp. Together they produce thrilling instrumental music, over-lapping tunes that sparkle and sing, competing against each other with a dazzling invention, playing the most enchanting improvised music it is possible to imagine.

The improvisation is the key to it all, because such freshness and fizz could only come from musicians playing the traditional tunes they know, while also riding the musical moment and adding their own contributions.

Ali Farka Tour has sometimes been seen as an African blues player, although in truth he is a traditional musician who recognises his resonance with the blues, as displayed in his Grammy Award-winning collaboration with Ry Cooder, Talking Timbuktu.

Cooder, by the way, is among a number of guests making subtle contributions here, although mostly all you hear is Ali's fluent acoustic guitar work and Toumani's fluid harp. Together they are as close to musical sunshine as you could hope to get.

Updated: 08:58 Thursday, July 28, 2005