Their music, whether it's from the Cape Verde Island's Cesaria Evora or Guinea Bissau's Manecas Costa, or the countless more traditional singers from Brazil, has a supremely relaxed feel which seduces every time.

Bonga is from Angola. He is a former national sportsman who switched to music and in the last days of the colonialists ran into trouble for his revolutionary leanings. He has a voice at once gritty and warm, a voice placed centre stage on this immaculately recorded disc. Behind him and filling out the stereo are acoustic guitar, a bit of accordion, background vocals, bass and Bonga's own percussion instrument, the dizanka, a bamboo scraper.

His songs and his music are obviously rooted in the Angolan tradition, but he has mixed in influences from places like Brazil and Cape Verde to give it that cosmopolitan and modern sound. He calls his musical style semba; it is probably not just coincidence that this is only one vowel away from samba.

A modestly exhibited piece of paradise.

Peter Bacon