The so-called Queen of Mbira, Stella Chiweshe, saw her first single go gold in 1974, around the same time the Green Arrows and the HCRB were breaking out, so she really deserves to be considered in the same light. Chiweshe adapted traditional Shona mbira music to an electrified, thoroughly modern performing context, and she continues to sing and play the mbira today.

It seems almost parenthetical, given the warmth of her music, that she had to struggle far more than her share to make it as a female artist in a male-dominated style. Or, at this point, to appreciate the fact that she actually recorded a great album last year in Harare—no small feat given the severity of the daily situation that faces Zimbabweans today.

That new material, called "Trance Hits," makes up the first disc of this double set. It's more focused around a traditional sound than her 2002 recording Talking Mbira. The dense drumming and percussion that underpins the music takes it in a new direction (for her), which Chiweshe calls "more rooted" in the sounds she grew up with. The opening "Wanyanya" features shifty, polyrhythmic drumming as its foundation. She sings through all but one of the pieces, also playing mbira on four tracks and hosho (shaker) on most. Her voice can sink to impressive depths, but she prefers to sing in the midrange, with a direct and soulful sound that's also a bit raw around the edges.

Chiweshe plays an incredibly resonant bass mbira on the fourth track, a meditation on the fish world, with surreal echoes and ripples surrounding trance vocals. To the extent Shona mbira music is infused with spiritual energy, this song really radiates an amazing amount, all at a medium pace. But it's a stark contrast to the more overtly song-like music that follows, and an interesting trance healing experience. As a whole, this material is better suited for contemplation than dance, but you can certainly do both.

Piranha has done itself and Chiweshe a service by providing the second disc in this set, a "Classic Hits" collection of thirteen pieces mostly recorded from 1988-1990 in Europe with her Earthquakes band. (Chiweshe made the first recording on the German label, which is now celebrating its 100th release by returning to where it started.) It's interesting to hear how much this archival material is oriented toward danceable rhythms, song form and the electric mbira sound.

If, as the liner notes claim, "Zungunde" (disc two, track seven) was improvised in the studio, then this band had a really impressive natural chemistry, because it comes across as a fully organized but also spontaneous jam. "Chachimurenga" takes political struggle to a plateau of reverberant bass and mbira-based groove. The liner notes go a long way to explaining the message behind the music, as well as Chiweshe's own ideas about things, and they're a mandatory stop on the way to fully appreciating this music.