Really, there"s no adequate preparation for this utterly original collusion of Western avant-garde bleeps with unusually free West African beats. A sort of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts for the "90s, Austrian drummer-composer Lukas Ligeti"s collaboration with Cote d"Ivoire musicians Beta Foly, former Der Plan member Kurt Dahlke, and West Coast guitar maximalist Henry Kaiser is a deeply textured Afrocentric kaleidoscope of cuts, samples, grooves, and virtuoso mayhem that reveals stranger and more imaginative levels of cross-cultural communication at every spin. Captain Beefheart fans will hear echoes of his anxious stop-start melodies, while Afropop enthusiasts may feel as though they are in downtown Aberdijan, posted at a crossroads where tribal rhythms and sensibilities collide and resolve into charmingly off-kilter liaisons. --Richard Gehr