The opportunity to travel in time as well as space is all part of the appeal of world music, although old field recordings – one of the key ways of doing this – can sometimes be tough going. The music on Malawi Grooves is approaching 70 years old; it belongs to a distant era. But thanks to the clarity of the recording and the presence and personality of the performances, it sounds as fresh as if it was done yesterday. Recorded between 1950 and 1958 by the legendary ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey, the tracks here previously appeared on volumes 13 and 14 of SWP's Music as an Endangered Species series. Each piece is a gem and the forms are diverse: topical songs by rough-voiced bards backed by buzzing zither riffs; mind-bending xylophone duets; a drum-and-vocal band with an uproarious gourd kazoo chorus; poignant a capella vocals and more. Every track stands out, and the ambient quality of the recording gives a palpable sense of entering another physical and cultural terrain, but one that is far from timeless or completely traditional: informative notes make the presence of the nearby copper mines and the lure of distant cities, such as Johannesburg, apparent.

Tracey has been posthumously accused of ‘producing’ traditional music for Western ears, but that's not an accusation that can be levelled at the recordings here of the mbira-like kankobela, played on the borders of Zambia and Zimbabwe. In these songs recorded in 1996 and 2008, the instrument's rasping buzz is kept to the fore to the extent you may wonder if something is wrong with your speakers. Seven elderly masters of the disappearing kankobela expound their views on love, life and morality over a variety of tingling, tumbling, sometimes piano-like, sometimes heavily vibrating tones – with the instrument customised to suit the tastes of the player. The Kankobela of the Batonga is a rich slice of a distant culture: it is harder work than Malawi Grooves, but well worth the effort.