Milo Miles

Fresh Air music critic Milo Miles reviews music from Russian rock group Auktyon. The band is currently on tour in the U.S. Auktyon, like some other Russian rock groups, found their footing during the censorship-free period of glasnost in the former Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev.

Fresh Air's world-music critic reviews The Mande Variations, the new CD from Malian kora player Toumani Diabate. Diabate says he descends from 71 generations of griots, or traditional song-storytellers.

When British musician and record producer Martin Atkins visited Beijing in 2006, he wasn't sure what kind of music scene he'd find. As it turned out, the sounds emerging from the Chinese underground were surprisingly familiar. Milo Miles reports.