Before we get into the new album by the world-beat collective, Baka Beyond, let's get something straight about the name. In Japan, "baka" may be what you call your boss behind his back, but this four-letter word also denotes the pygmy tribe indigenous to the rain forests near the Cameroon/Congo border.

Multi-instrumentalists Martin Cradick and Su Hart spent the winter of 1992 with the Baka. "Heart of the Forest," a collection of the tribe's bright, primal songcraft, was the result. Baka Beyond sprang from the desire to weave these jungle sounds into the British duo's own north European heritage. Dubbed Afro-Celt fusion, the music mixed African instruments like the djembe and kora with mandolins, uilleann pipes and other devices with Gaelic musical roots. Their influences now span continents, but the Baka people remain the guests of honor at this world party. Cradick and Hart still frequent Lupe, the tribe's jungle hamlet, where they cowrite with the villagers and use the royalties from BB's five albums to help the tribe maintain its culture.

The band's present 13-member lineup represents France, Ghana, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Cameroon, but almost half the musicians this time around hail from the United Kingdom, which may explain the sound of their recent release. The best work of past albums had Gaelic embellishments serving as a backdrop for African melodies, and percussion placed firmly in the foreground. The latest album, "East to West," proves that the reverse works just as well, with Irish and Scottish folk songs simmering over percolating Senegalese percussion. The track "Wandering Spirit" exemplifies this mix with Hart's voice flitting through old slip jigs like "The Whinny Hills of Leitrim" while violinist Paddy le Mercier swoops through a thicket of bustling cabasa and sogo rhythms based on the Baka Bwamba dance.