Malcolm Welbourne, AKA Papa Mali, can be forgiven for not having a handy identity to hang his MySpace tag on. Though he came to prominence in the 1980s on the Austin, Texas music scene with the legendary reggae band the Killer Bees, Welbourne is a Mississippi native who grew up in Shreveport and has deep ties to the New Orleans music community. Above all, he’s known for his shredding slide guitar work, whether fronting his own band or sitting in with fellow travelers such as the Radiators, Galactic and other New Orleans bands. Do Your Thing, produced by Dan Prothero for Fog City, the San Francisco label central to Galactic’s development, shows all of Mali’s sides, from the Texas honky-tonk of “Honeybee” to the surreal head trip of “Girls In Bossier City.” Mostly, though, this is a classic New Orleans session—all rhythmic nuance and deep, grainy textures. The basic tracks were recorded here at Truck Farm Studios with a core band consisting of Papa Mali, Robb Kidd on drums, Kirk Joseph on sousaphone, Henry Butler on piano and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux on vocals and percussion. Fellow Austinite Victoria Williams adds background vocals on a couple of tracks, but the moment of truth comes when the Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indians with Reverend Goat Carson throw down on the out-of-this-world chant “Early In the Morning.” This driving, echo-drenched polyrhythmic joy ride transforms the traditional Mardi Gras march into a contemporary slice of voodoo electronica.

Sometimes Prothero makes Mali’s voice sound like he has fallen down a well (“Sugarland”) and on other occasions he could be auditioning for the Gospel Tent (“True Religion”). The bonus track, a pretty acoustic song called “Hallelujah I’m a Dreamer” echoes the soulful chorus of “Save the Last Dance for Me” and suggests that Mali has even more identities lurking in his creative imagination.