The roots of this compilation may well have its origins in bluesy Tuareg music from the Sahara desert but its arrival in your CD player has come by anything but a direct route. In this "Nomad remix" of the soundtrack of Kathi von Koerber's three–part documentary project, Footsteps in Africa, the traditional call and response of the Tuareg chorus has been combined with chilled dance grooves to provide a hip contemporary feel.

There is a real Who's Who of world music DJs at work here—Kaya Project, Cheb i Sabbah, ambient Rara Avis and dubstepper Solar Lion—who each give their take on the "tone of the desert"—a hidden hum said to emanate from a landscape devoid of trees and birds that can only be perceived in deep silence. In addition to original music by composer Jamshied Sharifi, the raw material with which the DJs work is mostly Tuareg groups that have assembled in tents for festivals. Other performers have been recruited to add color to the mix too, like Moroccan trance singer Hassan Hakmoun in tandem with the Bombay Dub Orchestra, and throat singer Benno Klandt.

Here and there, the gritty Tuareg element seems to be swamped by a little too much slick DJ wizardry but overall the vibe is pleasingly organic, a sincere celebration of desert life made palatable to western tastes by the addition of electronics and the syntax of dance music. OK, the result may be a little less than the sum of its parts—it certainly ain't Tinariwen—but it is all in a good cause as 15% of the profits from this remix album go towards clean water projects for the Tuareg community.