Toumani Diabaté And The London Symphony Orchestra ★★★★ Kôrôlén WORLD CIRCUIT. CD/DL/LP

Malian superstar investigates his mystical side with added strings, on music “older than Bach”. A CLASH of two worlds, perhaps – the Malian kora master and a band of improvising griots meet 30 members of one of the finest western classical orchestras – but there is no doubting their empathy as the performers seek connections. The logistics must have been daunting: “Everyone has different dreams, so everybody plays the pieces differently,” says Diabaté. The whole enterprise could have collapsed at any moment, so credit to conductor Clark Rundell, a veteran of jazz sessions, and arrangers Ian Gardiner (the classical musicians upfront and adapting to the West African mood swings) and Nico Muhly (giving the musicians space and adding cues for Diabaté to extemporise around). Recorded at London’s Barbican in 2008, but timeless in every other aspect.