Bachir Attar - The Next Dream (1992)

Back in the wildly creative period of the psychedelic '60s, surrealist/avant-garde artist Brion Gysin took his friend Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones into the Moroccan foothills to hear and record The Master Musicians of a village called Joujouka. For a week they were possessed by a seductive form of trance music that has facilitated astral travel and celestial visitations for centuries. The Next Dream, produced by maverick musician Bill Laswell, is a solo project by Bachir Attar, the chief of these musicians. Playing shepherd's flute, gimbri (three-stringed goatskin lute) and ghaita (a droning seven-holed Moroccan folk oboe), Bachir is joined by an African percussionist and reedman Maceo Parker, who played for years with James Brown. The results are intoxicatingly surreal, and otherworldly.