New Orleans is gone but something of it remains that needs to be both rebuilt and reclaimed. Though something is lost, that doesn’t make us losers. Though there is less of what it used to be, that doesn’t make what’s left lesser. The parts that remain can still be undiminished if those who carry on can call on their deepest spirits and let that inspiration flow.

No one understands this better than Mac Rebennack, a living symbol of New Orleans music’s ability to revive itself against all odds, a man who’s been repeatedly exiled from his home only to return every time through the power of his music.

Like so much of Mac’s greatest work, sippiana hericane turns on such a subtle and simple idea that those not paying close attention feel free to dismiss it as a knocked-off session quickly turned to generate hurricane relief money. Even some of Mac’s admirers might mistake it for just another cool groove. But as he did in such visionary works as Gris Gris, Babylon and The Sun, Moon & Herbs, Mac is on a sacred quest here, trying nothing less than to work magic.

“Clean all the water in the world,” he chants at the outset. “Let’s all lend a hand to save our land.” This is not an environmental statement. Mac is calling for a soul cleansing here. We’re all the water, we’re all unclean, and the only way to “save our land” is to exorcise the evil spirits that make us all complicit in the corrupt political/corporate sellout that has all but destroyed our fair city. Shake off those demons!

The repeated admonitions to clean the water and save our land are incantations. Mac is summoning up all the white magic that has surrounded him through life, summoning the power of joy, the healing quality that suffused the culture he grew up in and provided a talisman of protection against the death and destruction that always hung on a blade flick, just a shot away.

“Wade: Hurricane Suite” is a mini-funeral based on the standard “Wade in the Water,” starting with a dirge-like instrumental version of “Wade” called “Storm Warning” followed by the mid-tempo instrumental groove, “Storm Surge,” then the elegiac piano-driven piece “Calm in the Storm.” “Aftermath” concludes with a strong resolution—you can almost feel the healing forces at work, lifting the music as the whole band chants solemnly, determinedly: “Wade in the water/ coming back like we oughtta.” David Barard’s proud-stepping bass line is like a call to arms, then Herman Ernest, III rolls that second line march along on the trap drums and the funeral magic is complete, that old resurrection and rebirth at work once again.

Now that Mac has conjured up the magic he can go ahead and lay one of his classic anthems on us, and “Sweet Home New Orleans” will be in the canon until he draws his last breath:

“Sweet home New Orleans / I can smell’nuff hear you callin’ / Since the levee came fallin’ / I say ‘Where y’at?’ my li’l darlin’…”

It’s a stately march tune that breaks to a minor key vamp for a chorus that chants out its inspirational message to the end:

“Home sweet home,” they all sing. “We’re gonna be back twice as strong!”