The elemental, electrifying sounds of South African a cappella collective Ladysmith Black Mambazo are best experienced in person.

Sure, you could pick up one of the group's 50-plus albums.

But the pure, primal charge that comes when you see and hear these gifted men perform isn't anything you can get from an iPod.

A mostly full Bass Hall warmly greeted founder Joseph Shabalala and the eight-member group Monday night.

The eager, receptive audience was only too happy to clap, laugh and sing along.

Near the program's conclusion, a handful of people even hopped onstage, at the group's invitation, and made an amusing attempt to writhe in time to the music.

For more that 90 minutes, Shabalala and Ladysmith Black Mambazo were simply dazzling, delivering syncopated harmonies clearly and cleanly enough to make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.

A Ladysmith performance isn't a chamber piece, however. All nine performers were constantly moving, adding layers of pantomime to the songs sung in their native Zulu as well as those sung in English.

The core mission of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, as explained by the 66-year-old Shabalala, who has said he will retire this year, is to spread love, peace and harmony throughout the world.

It's an admirable notion that doesn't ring false or feel like carefully rehearsed showmanship.

These men moved as though music were flowing through them, like a cleansing spirit -- a living, breathing force that animated them.

And more than a palpable sense of national pride -- Ladysmith Black Mambazo tirelessly and rightfully promotes its South African roots -- these vocalists represent something refreshing in an age that prizes plastic pop tarts over meaningful music.

The group's spare sound, which first caught attention in the U.S. via Paul Simon's landmark 1986 album Graceland, pries open your mind to the world, making a country so obsessed with itself aware of all the endless wonders beyond its borders.

-- by Preston Jones