Luke Quaranta is a percussionist in the rock-West African music quintet known as Toubab Krewe. The band is on the road, supporting their self-titled debut CD.

In a recent phone call, Quaranta discussed that release and the show that will bring his Asheville, N.C.-based instrumental band to Portland's Empire Dine and Dance on Wednesday.

"This will be our first Portland show. We've been playing all over the Northeast -- of course Boston and New Hampshire, a bunch in Vermont and Rhode Island, but never in Maine. Our booking agent is actually based in Portland, so we're looking forward to (the show)."

There's an even more personal reason for Quaranta's excitement about coming to Maine, and Portland in particular.

"I've got a godfather there who's a singer-songwriter, Bob Rosero, and he's got a band called the Renovators. I grew up watching him play music with my mom in bands kind of my whole life. He's looking forward to me being up there, too!"

Toubab Krewe's self-titled debut CD was released nationally in 2006. "We've been just touring behind that ever since, we're just a fairly young band -- we formed and our first show as a quintet was in January of '05, and we recorded that CD in April of '05, so we've grown quite a bit since then.

"We're really looking forward to putting out our second record, which is in post production right now and we're going to release in the fall."

The band has averaged about 200 shows a year since recording that CD and with the same five members who started still on board (Teal Brown, drums; Drew Heller, electric guitar, soku; David Pransky, electric bass; Justin Perkins, kamel ngoni, kora, electric guitar; and, of course, Quaranta, percussion). It goes without saying that the quintet is as tight and together as they ever have been before.

"For first-time listeners of the style, it can be rhythmically challenging," he said. "It can throw you off -- but once you get accustomed to it, it's got some really heavy pockets -- 6/8 pockets and even some 12/8 pockets, which can be bizarre, at first, but once you get familiar there's some heavy pocket stuff happening. There are some lighter 4/4 stuff but the signature West African (style) is like the way I say it, 'It's like everyone's playing around the down beat, which can throw you off but once you get the sense of that you realize how heavy the down beat is there.' "

Lucky Clark is from Sweden, Maine.