There’s a sound you hear in the desert, a hum that can only be felt in the deepest silence. It is the high tone of vibrating nerves, the rush of blood in the veins. It’s the ultimate beat, the dance of the body itself.

This sound lies behind filmmaker, producer, and former VJ Kathi von Koerber’s three-part exploration of the life, worldview, and creativity of the nomadic Tuareg peoples of the Sahara. Envisioned from the start as a feature-length documentary film and soundtrack, Footsteps in Africa (KiahKeya Productions; 2009) reveals the vibrant cultural life of the world’s most forbidding climate and is coming to select festivals across North America and the world in 2010.

The sounds Von Koerber uncovered deep in the desert find new resonances on re-imagined tracks of Footsteps in Africa Soundtrack: Nomadic Remix. Brought together by producer and conscious compiler Joshua Jacobs begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting of Ambient Groove, DJs from across the planetary dance floor—from the ambient healing of Rara Avis to the worldly downtempo of the Kaya Project, from rising stars like DimmSummer to global remix icons like Cheb i Sabbah—explore the nature of the desert and its unexpectedly global nomadic denizens, with part of the profits going directly back to Tuareg communities.

“In the desert, there are no birds, no trees, just this denseness. You feel an amazing hertz frequency,” von Koerber explains. So she and soundtrack composer Jamshied Sharifi decided they needed to do something innovative. They invited throat singer Benno Klandt to vocalize over the entire film, a subtle sound only audible on a good sound system yet quietly uniting the soundtrack.