In the Heart of the Moon

Recorded in just a few sessions with no rehearsals, this GRAMMY®-winning 2006 album is a meeting of giants. The contrast should have been stark—Ali Farka Touré’s guitar speaks of Mali’s parched desert north, while notes spill from Toumani Diabaté’s kora like water in the fertile south—but, instead, it’s a strikingly fresh and spontaneous rendering of Bambara and Songhai classics. Touré sets aside his searing guitar style, finding sweetness in everything from the transcendent opener, “Debe,” to the delightful “Mayor of Niafunke.”