World Fusion

Where do you want to go today? To the Celtic dreamscape of "The Mummer's Dance," conjured by Canadian-born songstress Loreena McKennitt? To a secret world where French musicians Eric Mouquet and Michael Sanchez (better known as Deep Forest) match up electronic chill-out grooves with Peruvian pipe sounds and the exotic voices of Central African Pygmies for a "Sweet Lullaby"? Maybe you want something a little more earthly, like a London club where indie rockers Cornershop pay tribute to Indian superstar Asha Bhosle with "Brimful of Asha." No problem: With our World Fusion Essentials, you can get there and beyond without even having to pack. Now, head to our Next Steps.

The sonic scenery is dazzling, but you'll have to dream up your own snapshots as the genre-bending sounds of Enter the Haggis take you through the "Lancaster Gate" and into a whole new wonderful world of — dare we say it — bagpipe rock. Elsewhere, German ambient pioneers Popol Vuh command "Singet, denn der Gesang vertreibt die Wölfe" ("Sing, for Singing Drives Away the Wolves"), before Outback leads us off into the wide Australian open for some "Air Play" on a magic carpet of acoustic guitar and didgeridoo. And our confluence of global styles becomes a whirlpool in Deep Cuts . . .

Keep your iTunes passport close at hand — we're traveling far and wide to lands where sonic boundaries blur, and strange and wonderful new soundscapes emerge like volcanic islands boiling up from the seas. (Or the skies, if you count the space-age bossa nova of Nicola Conte's "Bossa Per Due.") Transportation comes courtesy of Toby Banks (code name Banco de Gaia), who steeps the ambient, acid-house grooves of "Kara Kum" in sounds from all over the Eastern world, and from "Techno Issa" (a.k.a. Issa Bagayogo), who gives his traditional music from Mali an electronica boost on the sublimely funky "Nogo."

For world travelers who prefer to keep it close to home, we give you our World Fusion Essentials, an epic journey through all that is wild and wonderful about the planet's many musical sounds. We've rounded up only the best tour guides for the trip, from Los Angeles groove collective Ozomatli — who ask "(Who Discovered) America?" then tumble together a musical answer from the dynamic sounds of their city — to the Afro Celt Sound System, who fuse the music of Ireland and Africa in "Seed." And worlds collide to glorious effect as African superstar Ali Farka Touré melds minds with roots music genius Ry Cooder to come up with an off-the-map brand of bluesy atmospherics on "Ai Du."