Various Artists

Although you’d have a right to be wary of this compilation’s generic title and faux-primitive graphics, you could do worse when the time comes to check out drumcentric CD surveys. (And you know that time will inevitably come.) Mondo Beat 2 rounds up popular stickmen such as Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones), Mickey Hart (Grateful Dead) and Airto Moreira (Miles Davis, Weather Report) as well as more obscure figures like Greg Ellis/VAS, Bill Laswell’s Tabla Beat Science and Dhol Foundation.

An eleven-track travelogue of rhythmic sorcery, Mondo Beat 2 touches on Indian, Brazilian, Middle Eastern, African and modern Western styles. The disc comes off as an earnest, NPRish lesson in global beat schematics, but there are moments of real, fiery brilliance. Taufiq’s “The Tree Of Rhythm” and Tabla Beat Science’s “Secret Channel” give Indian tablas sizzling workouts, Greg Ellis/VAS builds a storm of taiko thunder to rival the famous Japanese Kodo ensemble, the Charlie Watts/Jim Keltner Project’s “Kenny Clarke” pays homage to that jazz drummer with saucy reverence, and Sikuru Adepoju and Afrika Heartbeat offer intricately layered and chunky articulations on talking drums. This percussion primer teaches listeners that a brute physical act like hitting a drum can communicate profound spiritual feelings.