Blowing Rufus' Mind

Traditional Music of Peru: The Ayacucho Region and The Lima Highlands (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings), both filled with harps, 10-string guitars and panpipes, are volumes six and seven in a series of haunting field recordings focusing on that area of the world lesser minds associate with last weekend's nose candy and the panpipes on Simon & Garfunkel's "El Condor Pasa." (Mississippi "Weatherproof" Rufus critiques: "Panpipes? Panpipes, drainpipes -- sounds like the devil with a snot whistle. Spending my Saturday night listening to this jive trash! Walkie-talkie my headplate later if you want to go strutting out for some fine kitchen appliances.")

Antonio Carlos Jobim's original "Girl From Ipanema" is probably some liver-spotted septuagenarian doing foldouts in Brazil's equivalent of Modern Maturitythese days. Never fear, Samba Bossa Nova(Putumayo) Viagrifies the lust and romance back into Rio de Janeiro with this sampler of contemporary artists. Some of the players are kids of the ultra-sexual samba and bossa nova '60s craze, including Jobim's son and grandson in Quarteto Jobim-Moeienbaum. A rare glimpse of what's currently going on down there, so to speak.

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R. Carlos Nakai's flute meets Cliff Sarde's keyboard and programming for some Native American electronica on Enter Tribal (Canyon Records), resulting in moody, pulsating stuff that keeps Nakai's hypnotic soaring grounded. Ought to be a big audience for this one, especially with the second generation of new-agettes who can't decide whether to spend their evening meditating or getting Ecstatic at a rave.