by Johnny LoftusThis installment in David and Diane Arkenstone's Adventure Cargo series travels to the plains of Africa for inspiration. Inspiration is an important word. African Skies only uses the continent as a guide, accentuating the typical contemporary instrumental palette of surging synths and vaguely ethnic electronic percussion with African vocalists and minor nods to indigenous instrumentation. This approach posits the four pieces here somewhere between the Arkenstones' usual name-brand output and soundtrack music for the next globe-hopping Tomb Raider film. Cuts like"Safari on the Serengeti" and"Voices in the Jungle" are evocative, to be sure. But their African influence should be taken at face value.