Terry Riley’s In C extends an open invitation. Instrumentalists and singers with even rudimentary technical skills will likely have sufficient staying power to learn those 53 melodic soundbites which, in 1964, Riley outlined on one sheet of A4 paper. And the list of contenders who have chosen to accept his mission, from the Bang on a Can All Stars in New York City to Paul Hillier’s Ars Nova Copenhagen and outwards towards Japanese psychedelic noise group Acid Mothers Temple, is impressive. But In C is not about reading notes. Riley’s modular score is about internalising his melodic loops, then listening – hard – to the music’s emerging shapes and directions, and making moment-to-moment decisions about how best to interweave your own contributions around the ensemble chatter.

In C Mali is, we’re told, the first African interpretation of Riley’s highly influential proto-minimalist score, a dream project instigated by the German conductor André de Ridder. Performances of the piece are intimately bound up with any chosen instrumentation; but not only is the line-up of instruments unfamiliar here, many of those instruments themselves offer up fresh timbral treats, to Western ears at least.

And there is time aplenty for the ear to linger during this 40-minute performance. Brian Eno pitches in with vocals while Damon Albarn (of beat combo Blur) plays melodica; otherwise the ensemble is made up from a starry cast of local musicians. The recording was cut in Bamako, the Mali capital, in 2013 with Cheick Diallo’s flute featuring alongside the lute-like intonation of Djelifily Sako and Modibo Diawara on kora. Adama Koita on the harp-like kamel n’goni balances against Alou Coulibaly on calabash and Guindo Sala on the bowed imzad.

The repeated top C is, of course, heard but uniquely among recordings of In C are the torrent of dovetailing, waltzing currents of grooves underneath, beautifully captured in this recording’s vivid sound picture. Midway, in a gesture not in the score, although this performance has been authorised by Riley, the pulse stops and one musician delivers his soulful soliloquy. Then the groove is reinstated and Riley’s universal tonality once again finds itself in translation.