This album sets itself an impossible task in attempting to capture the artistic ferment of three separate Recording Week workshops at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios featuring 75 musicians including Sinead O’Connor, Tim Finn, the Holmes Brothers, Papa Wemba and on and on. Sometimes the results play like a minor lost Gabriel album, wreathing his familiar voice in thundering percussion, ethnic instruments and world rhythms. Other stretches sound more like disconnected tracks of Arab, African and world-pop music. But what makes the album a winner is the ferocious

virtuosity of each track and the sense of total commitment every musician brought to the session. Download: “Altus Silva.”