Dedicated to my sister Poonie - Incandescently beautiful music from Mali, Kenya and the Congo with an emphasis on kora and guitar

Inspired by the people I met and the sounds I heard at the Rift Valley Festival in Kenya last year & sailing in the Quirimbas Islands off the coast of Mozambique...

"The wind had dropped and the huge, patched sail slowly unfurled as the crew heaved on the old hemp ropes and raised the single boom to the top of the creaking mast. We sat in the sail's shade and headed out to deeper water and the distant sand of our next island.

Later, standing on the shore, with the wading birds, and the plovers and egrets and herons and the yellow billed stalks gathering in the shallow water between us and the open sea, with the sky turning pink and the sun setting over the wide mouth of the river, I look back on the day and find my eyes full of tears and my heart full of calm."