For a time during college, I worked in a bookshop that also trafficked in a lot of New Age music. I learned to despise most of it, but I also stumbled across a few gems; for every five or ten discs of treacly wankishness, there'd be an artist creating unique and beautiful soundscapes.

If I still worked in that shop I'd be unable to pay my rent, but I'd probably get through a lot of long work days by shoving La Luna Lounge in the player and jamming the "repeat" button down. Though apparently pitched to the New Age crowd, the disc deserves far wider attention. A collaboration between acoustic guitar wizard Rom Ryan and percussionist Terrence Karn, La Luna Lounge is a musical-style travelogue, carrying the listener around the globe -- into the center of teeming cities, across hazy deserts, through steamy jungles and towering mountain ranges. I was pleased to observe that unlike many artists who work with world music elements, Ryan and Karn have included the United States in their mystic musical travels (it is, after all, a far more "exotic" country than many people are willing to acknowledge). New details appear with each successive listen; even the slowest tracks leave you energized and intrigued rather than miring you in meditative somnolence. Ryan's guitar work is often literally entrancing, as on the churning "Psychedelic Texas", and he turns in some spellbinding flute work to boot, while Karn, who doubles on vocals, proves himself to be a versatile polyrhythmist. Obviously, La Luna Lounge lacks any sort of punk rockish edginess, but Moodafaruka's music makes that crucial mental/emotional connection that's common among the best practitioners of any genre. In other words, it's good music, which is what you're after, right?