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At the very least, this is some of the most joyous, life-affirming music out there. The Very Best's debut album finds Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and London-based production duo Radioclit (Etienne Tron and Johan Karlberg) more than making good on the promise of the internet mixtape that introduced their partnership to the world. That tape, one of 2008's most celebrated (and celebratory) releases, displayed a truly boundary-defying yet immediately cohesive and recognizable sound: a euphoric global mélange of pop, dance, hip-hop, world-folk, sunny indie rock, electronica, cinematic new age lushness, and the African sounds of marabi, highlife, and kwaito, all highlighted by Mwamwaya's deliriously infectious Chichewa crooning. This time out, without the launch pad of familiar source material that sometimes made the mixtape's slew of remixes, interpolations, and covers feel slightly like a cheeky arithmetic mashing-up of reference points, the threesome have crafted something even more distinctive and organic, dissolving together their panoply of influences into a set of songs (not merely "tracks") that feel blissfully free of formulas and forerunners