Various Artists - The Rough Guide to Sufi Music (Volume 2) 2011

There is no such thing as Sufi music. That is, Sufi musicians reflect the styles of their native regions -- and, these days, sometimes reach far beyond them. This two-CD set begins with a plaintive solo on the ney (a sort of flute that's been played for nearly five millennia) by a member of Turkey's Mevlevi Sufis (aka the "whirling dervishes.") But subsequent tracks travel beyond the Middle East and South Asia, adding reggae, electronica and West African elements. Women's voices, banned by fundamentalist mullahs, are heard on several selections.

Sufism is "the most accessible, liberal and pluralistic aspect of Islam," notes William Dalrymple, a New-Delhi-based British travel writer and the compilation's curator. Although some Sufi sects' music is meditative, much of it expresses sheer joy. Indo-Pakistani qawwali -- represented here in part by Sain Zahoor's spirited "Allah Hoo" and Gaudi's dubby remix of a track by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan -- features love lyrics that can be heard as either romantic or spiritual. So it's not incongruous that Arif Lohar and Meesha Shafi's "Alif Allah Chambey Di Booty," an exuberant call-and-response number, sounds like something a troupe of male dancers might sing to a lovestruck young couple in a Bollywood musical.

Other highlights include two songs from Senegal, Cheikh Lo's keening "Zikr" and Modou Gaye's stark but propulsive "Sindidi," both of which meld African and Arab traditions. Of the ethno-techno stuff, which includes relatively unmodernized mashups by Transglobal Underground and DJ Cheb i Sabbah, the standout is Sanam Marvi's "Manzil-E-Sufi," which slips from devotional chant into Cocteau-Twins-like glossolalia.

The set's bonus disc, entirely performed by Sufi Fakirs of Bengal, is for listeners who prefer their world music uncut and stylistically unified. These nine tunes, none previously released outside India, features multiple voices, accompanied by dancing drums, flute and dotara (a four-string lute). If the music is less diverse than on the first CD, but no less intoxicating.