Next Stop . . . Soweto Volumes 1-3, Strut Records****

Golden ages seem often to be born out of the most challenging circumstances. When South Africa's apartheid government banned American music in the 1960s, the musicians of the emerging townships went underground and began making their own. Mbaqanga(meaning "home made") was better known in the world beyond Soweto as "township jive", and this fusion of traditional sounds and western instruments produced an outpouring of extraordinary music that still sounds fresh and joyous. Over four meticulously researched CDs, Next Stop . . . Sowetocharts Mbaqanaga's origins in the penny whistle bands and a cappella choirs of Soweto, through its flirtations with funk and soul, to its ultimate flowering in jazz. It's a perfect introduction to one of the richest seams in African popular music. See strut-records.com CORMAC LARKIN

Download tracks: Umkhovu, Intandane