Here comes Mariam's asiatic-songbird voice floating over steam-powered guitar chords and a rambling jazz piano-line on "Sarama (La Charmante)". There goes Amadou's nasal french-pop warbling on the barnstorming "À Chacun Son Problème". Two of the three albums whose tracks populate The Magic Couple, Sou ni Tile and Tje ni Mousso, pair matching complements (Day/Night, Man/Woman; the other album is Wati -- "Time", which may be said to bridge these pairs), and so here we find an illustration of the union of these extraordinary musicians, complementary powers coupled together for more than 30 years.

If it seems strange the blind pair from Mali are back with yet another greatest hits collection just three years after the last "best of" Amadou & Mariam album, Je Pense à Toi, stranger still is that this 15-track collection contains a handful of the same songs featured on that earlier entry, even kicking things off with the same eponymous title theme. But if the singing duo felt the earlier production sailed left of the foul pole, fair enough to let them swing again -- the more so considering Wrasse's world music chops weigh in significantly heavier than Universal's.

The Magic Couple departs from Amadou & Mariam's winter 2008 output Welcome to Mali and 2005's Dimanche à Bamako: gone are the all-star supporting casts and the noise-collage productions. Instead we discover a surging organic union of international influences that already existed within these artists -- for Mali's folk music stands at the crossing of axes from European pop through North African raï to sub-Saharan instrumentation and from West African rhythms toward Oriental harmonies. Romping boxcar trails like "Combattants" (download above) encourage you to hop train to your own nearest Timbuktu.