Though they have morphed into a “proper” band, replete with drums and bass and hip-hop grooves, Zap Mama started as an a capella group, a collection of women from Africa who could sing the birds out of the trees. This, their first album, is still their most engaging and joyous, brimming over with more energy, ideas and spirit than it can hold. Drawing from pygmy chant, doo-wop, early gospel, madrigals and Cuban vocal groups like Los Papines, Zap Mama's first album is consistently marvelous, with voices spinning around each other, clucking, whooping, buzzing and humming with a clattering beauty.