1 Giant Leap - 1 Giant Leap (2001)

1 Giant Leap is Jamie Catto from Faithless & musician/producer Duncan Bridgeman. The album is recordings they gathered while traveling around the world. They recorded a number of musicians, storytellers, authors, filmmakers, artists and thinkers from many different cultures. Artists included on the album are Michael Stipe, Asha Bosle, Dennis Hopper, Baaba Maal, The Mahotella Queens, Kurt Vonnegut, Horace Andy, Michael Franti & DJ Swamp. Housed in a slipcase. 2002.

The U.K.-based musician, film director, and Faithless cofounder Jamie Catto and producer Duncan Bridgeman coproduced this impressive multimedia CD, which boasts an eclectic array of artists ranging from Senegal's Baaba Maal and New Zealand's Maori artist Whirimako Black to the king of ambient, Brian Eno. This project, the fruit of a six-month, five-continent recording spree, is a funky, folkloric, and futuristic mélange of sampled indigenous instruments and electronica. "Braided Hair" teams the rap-country vocals of Arrested Development's Speech with the daring pop diva Neneh Cherry. The South African mbaqanga vocals of the Mahotella Queens provide the Afro-rave underpinnings for vocalist Ulali's poetic pleas for African unity. The tantric trances of the South Asian syncopated tabla drums pepper the synth-laden "When You Dream," which features R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe and the Indian star Asha Bhosle. Boundaries of nationality, time, and musical genre meld into grooves for the head, hips, and heart that need no translation. --Eugene Holley Jr.