Festival in the Desert is a veritable musical passport. It is a live recording so well preserved it feels as though the performances are being piped in from Timbuktu, via satellite, to your very own sound system. This recording practically puts a listener at front-row-center. Festival in the Desert is one of the best concert recordings period and it most certainly can be considered to be one of the most novel live shows ever.

A three-day affair that occurred at the crossroads where mighty African empires flourished, where Islam made deep in-roads into the continent, where cross-ethnic problems persist, and where ecological fragility is at its most apparent, African musicians cavorted with their Western guests to create a magical musical experience. The African Blues of Ali Farka Toure and the discerning music of Oumou Sangare shared a stage with Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and the musings of Italian classical musician Ludovico Einaudi, and his partner Ballake Sissoko.

Festival in the Desert—besides having served as a traditional gathering of the Tuareg and as an event that hosted camel races, a camping-out jamboree, and an arts & crafts fair—fulfills its role as an acoustical dispatch from Africa's hinterland. At a venue open to the African sky and at an event pollinated with African folk songs, a serving of the Blues, a dabbling of Francophone hip-hop, and a sparkling of Native-American rock, troubadours, artisans, nomads, and cosmopolites seemingly frolicked to their hearts' delight, so much so as to make anyone with a subscription to a travel magazine jealous.

—Ekem Amonoo Lartson