London-based Japanese DJ/producer Kay Suzuki has found an opening for a new EP on his own label, Round In Motion and it’s good enough to get anyone moving!

After England’s friendly with Japan at the weekend and with the World Cup fast approaching, time to check out some Anglo-Japanese musical appreciation via the mighty bass of Jah Wobble!

We’ve followed Soil & “Pimp” Sessions from the start so I might have said this before, their latest album is the best yet! 6 of the best so to speak.

The first in a series of four Signature Edition releases where the artist selects their own ‘Best Of’ tracks for a double CD set; and Nguyên Lê is a very hard act to follow!

The John Butler Trio’s first album in 3 years that’s appropriate released in the same week as the Grand National, why is that you ask?

Taking their lead from such rock giants as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, Aussie funk-soul-boogie experts drop their fourth album with the unimaginative title, 4; thankfully, the 12 tracks are anything but 4th rate - this is a big one!

Agoria (aka Sébastien Devaud) is a producer with his own unique twist that has had the call up for the latest edition of Balance on Australian based EQ Recordings and its all aller retour and rising sine!

The noble attempt to fix the shifting sands of music from around the world has been likened to the book equivalent of Apocalypse Now. A project whose twists and turns continually threaten to overwhelm its resources makes it all the more welcome and cherished as it arrives

For a slice of modern Indian pop music, look no further than the larger-than-life figure of Kailash Kher. The Mumbai-based vocalist and bandleader made his name as a playback singer and star of many a Bollywood soundtrack.

Spreading the word about Hudson Mohawke has been as easy as a hot knife cutting through butter over the last couple of years but has his debut album come to a sticky end (or should that be loop)?

When worlds collide sometimes you get something unusually magical. And guess what? Saiyuki is such magic.

Not your average soundtrack. Imagine a local X-Factor in a country just emerging from the rule of the Taliban. There’ll be tears and laughter and some rattling good tunes

A brave and moving film by Dominic Brown as he goes underground in West Papua to tell the stories of the West Papuans, who have been under an illegal and murderous occupation almost since the day the colonial powers moved out.

Now when Gilles Peterson drops the latest track by Jazztronrik, like he did the other week, it’s going to get this office a little excited so it proved to be the track of the night; Disco : Boogie at its best; we love you Ryota!

Recorded in Lyall Bay, Wellington and recently showcased live at WOMAD, the best reggae, dub, soul, jazz band in the world present their latest album… and its a grower.

I have to confess to having remained immune to Dengue Fever’s take on pre-Pol Pot Cambodian rock up to now. But this superb documentary film of the LA band’s 2005 tour of Cambodia - and accompanying soundtrack that weaves in many of the ensemble’s influences - puts it into a whole new and striking context

A gentle and intriguing album of modernised rural balladry from the grasslands of central Asia

Charlie GIllett scoops up yet again the tracks you loved but never got round to owning and those that would otherwise have entirely slipped past you unnoticed like so many logs floating down the Niger in the middle of the night

We know about Cookin’ on 3 Burners but who’s this girl called Kylie Auldist?

They both possess impressive CVs when it comes to collaborations, and this charming, eloquent mix of Indian and US roots music will surely take its place amongst the most satisfyingly creative results for both artists

Hip-hop funks and breaks is what these guys are into and when they say more, they mean more guests on the album than is reasonable to expect.

With news of a Jazz dance festival coming soon, there’s been no better time for the European launch of Ray Harris & The Fusion Experience album that’s exactly that, the full fusion experience!

An absorbing evening of Chinese music with central Asian folk origins in London’s delightful Union Chapel to close The Barbican’s intriguing Beyond The Wall programme of new Chinese music.

Lucky 7 in the Nomads series finds BBC Radio Asian expert take over for a new selection of global music beats to put you in the travelling frame of mind.

For a special 10” release, here are a couple of the best tracks off the latest album by Iain Archer to savour.

Smoking Gun is Angus Stone’s debut album and it’s the definitely the ‘crime scene’ compared to the sunny folk-pop he is known for as half of the duo with his sister, Angus & Julia Stone.

Dutch DJ, music producer and remixer from Amsterdam, Joris Voorn sets a new level for the compilation mix CD for deep house and techno in the ultimate state of balance.

OK, I will - “Akemi Kakihara, I love you” but in all honesty, I love her dubside even more”.

You’ll recall Gianmarco Liguori released a rather special album called Stolen Paintings back in 2006 along with the (now well worn) single, ‘Penta’ so it’s a great start to the year with a really new CD called Ancient Flight Text.

Alice Russell has been underground for so long you being to wonder whether she’ll ever find her pot of golden recognition at the end of the musical rainbow; lets hope Pot Of Gold finally does it for her at it’s her best yet!

Eclectic former PiL bass man Jah Wobble teams up with wife Zi Lan Liao to produce his best post-Invaders of the Heart album yet, a dubby yang to the yin of Damon Albarn’s Journey to the West Chinese opera

Florian Keller is one of the most respected jazz, funk, boogie, soul and Afrobeat DJs around and here is a special CD of one of his sets recorded live in Kagoshima, Japan.

Fat Freddy’s Drop reached lofty heights with their award-winning, platinum selling, 2005 album Based On A True Story. Every New Zealander it seemed bought the CD, played to death and then brought it abroad with them

Trickbaby’s last album Hanging Around produced a No. 1 hit in India and tracks featured on numerous Bollywood soundtracks; that makes the follow-up one of the most eagerly-awaited albums of the year.

After Gilles Peterson’s recent trip to Japan where he met up with Part-Time Heroes promoting the new album, Meanwhile…, don’t be surprised to see these guys back in the Worldwide awards at the end of the year.

Collectors note, this is a special double 7-inch vinyl that brings together concepts of music and art (the vinyl come in gatefold sleeve with conceptual artwork); not only that, the music is great too!

Kuniyuki Takahashi is a producer and sound designer from Sapporo, Japan. In 1997 he started his own record label BSC (Bacteria Sound Commune) but this compilation of remixes on Mule Musiq is likely to get him the most exposure he’s had to-date; because its awesome!

Punk rock fused with banghra, dub, hip-hop is their trade-mark sound and there’s no let up with their latest album as it is as ferocious as when Asian Dub Foundation first burst into our musical consciousness.

Rudresh Mahanthappa is a New York based jazz alto saxophonist and composer who follows a rich tradition of ‘Indo-Jazz’ with this new album appropriatly entitled Kinsmen; or does he?

It’s no word of a lie when I say some of the best times I’ve had have been with Richard E; mostly in a dark basement but hear me now, this is the 7” you’ve been waiting for!

A Limited Edition 10” vinyl sampler precedes the full album but with the ‘Asian Mark Ronson’ on one side and with a band that takes their name from a sewing machine manufacturer on the other, this is more than enough to get us excited.

If you think Recloose moved to New Zealand in 2001 to get away from it all never to be seen again, think again as Perfect Timing is 10 tracks of dance infused funk ‘n’ boogie that’s out now!

Filmaker Cyrus Sutton joined forces with the mighty Ubiquity Records to make a documentary about surfing. Obviously, such a project needs a soundtrack and who better to pick than their very own Shawn Lee and a trio of Ozzies, Band Of Frequencies, Low Pressure Sound System and Afto Dizzi Act.

The Black Seeds were a revelation on tour last year along with Eva Be so to say the new album is eagerly awaited is an understatement; thankfully Solid Ground is now here and sets the new foundation.

Hot on the heals of their appearance at Death Jazz, the debut album from a trio plucked out of Soil & “PIMP” Sessions is a maestro performance to the power of three.

One of the excellent signings on Futuristica Music, after Flyt’s debut single ‘Free’, the follow-up is going to get them even higher recognition?

Soil & “Pimp” Sessions decide that for their third album, it’s time to take over a whole planet with their on full on death jazz attack.

This unlikely combination is as hot as a sexy beast right now as we get an early look at a dance floor monster; always a good thing if you ask me.

With that uncanny timing of things, whilst the Roundhouse host a night of with the SOIL & “Pimp” Sessions, The Rough Guide guys decide to go back to a time before Death Jazz!

Billed by the promoters as the great man’s final concert and by Ravi Shankar himself as hopefully just a semi-final, this gig was as much a homage to the man as a chance to hear him play one more time

CD-R is a night run at London’s famed Plastic People club, giving budding producers and artists a chance to hear their work on a prized sound system among their peers, and under the tutorage of industry stalwarts Tony Nwachaku and Gavin Alexander…

Evolving from the more gentle pop of the first album, the new Trickbaby is signed to canny label Wrasse (home of Rachid Taha) and features a harder version of the catchy Asian fusion we loved the first time round

I’ve said it before, Lyrics Born, one of our favourite artists comes back big with his first studio album since 2003’s highly praised Later That Day

DJ Kawasaki shows us his metal with this new EP, The Tokyo Crossover.

A short, intriguing debut release of world music electronica from a talented new singer from Scotland, by way of Burma.

North and South Indian traditional cultures connect to develop an entrancing dialogue between sitar, flute, mridangam and tabla which is beautifully fresh and enthralling from start to finish

Relaxed and playful recital full of magic, from inside the beautiful St. Luke’s Church in London on November 13

The deeply rich tones of the pakhawaj, a highly revered North Indian barrel shaped drum, ring out clearly and mesmerise in this wonderfully recorded live setting

She won a BBC Award for World Music in 2005 for her breathtaking Sense Records album Pure, and now Kaushiki Chakrabarty is back with a follow-up every bit as stunning as that live album.

Cookin’ On 3 Burners are hot stuff in the kitchen of underground down under funk.

One of the hardest things to get right in this non-existent genre that we insist on calling ‘world music’ is the marriage between modern arrangements and traditional instrumentation and melodies. On Alive, China’s multi-million selling singer Sa Ding Ding has achieved just such a marriage with exceptional style and grace

Breakthrough may be a bit of an obvious title but don’t go overlooking the latest album to come out of Japan via Pantone as it’s got some Fly favourites on it.

The worldwide launch of Tenori-on was held at the Vinyl Factory last night. Not one to miss an opportunity to be at the start of a revolution, in true suit marketing speak, I can announce, “The future has arrived!”

Is this really the same Sevara that made the gorgeous album of traditional Uzbek music and modern beats, Yol Bolsin, a few years ago? Many of the same appealing elements abound on Sen, but there’s a considerable move in a modern, Westernised, direction

Fans of Impossible Ark Records will be going into spirals of ecstasy at the thought of a new release on the ever-improving label. Vortex is out now!

Charlie Gillett mixes the well-known with underground discoveries, crosses continents, sifts thousands of songs, balances the sexes and blends contemporary and traditional on this year’s crop

Banishing demons through funk and electronics is the agenda here, spread out over a diverse album filled with intriguing and inventive sounds.

Picture steep-sided mountains covered in lush tropical rainforest with clouds forming in front of your eyes. The warm night air is filled with tantalising smells from the food stalls and above the sound of chirping cicadias, global sounds fill the natural bowl — the crowd turns its head as a flying fox is silhouetted against a giant floating globe light

As a preview to a new compilation on Freestyle, Black Feeling, here’s a stormer of a 12” to practice our jazz dance routines to

Death jazz gets funked up with the new album from the ultra-stimulating figureheads of the Japanese jazz scene

This DVD of selected highlights of last year’s World Cup Tour captures FFD on their Fantastic Voyage around Europe with a cheap-as-chips bargain price tag.

Wow! The mighty New Zealand crew, Fat Freddy’s Drop are in the country at the moment but the Best Seven guys have found another dope reggae band from the antipodes: The Black Seeds

Soil & ‘Pimp’ Sessions blow hot jazz from Tokyo like the merciless winds of the Sahara

Two years ago, OKI and his Dub Ainu Band burst onto the UK world music scene with a storming performance at WOMAD, taking the traditional North Japanese folk melodies played on the tonkori (a long, flat, unfretted guitar) and beefing them up with vocals, electric bass, percussion and occasional electric guitar to produce an exhilarating sound ranging from rock to dub to funk, without quite being exactly any of those things

If you’re not into atmospheric cosmic hip hop beats, you soon will be as the half German, half Japanese Samon Kawamura releases his début album next month

Original Wiseguy & Bronx Dog, highly regarded DJ Reggie ‘Regal’ Jackson delivers an album of smoked out bliss with supreme drums.

We’re now quite used to getting good stuff from New Zealand and Solaa is no exception

West Papua is a country of surprising and hidden depths, which is echoed well in Merdeka, an album raising awareness of the plight of its people.

New Zealand’s recent reputation is for developing roots reggae bands but this album, with some help an ex-member of Ian Carr’s Nucleus, is something of a revelation.

Rooted in the old school but bursting with fresh energy, Perth’s faithful beatmonger serves up eleven lively helpings of the kind of funky breaks we all love to get down to, cementing his position as champion of Australia’s ‘sampling renaissance’ — but could it be even better?

It all began when ‘Midnight Marauders’ leapt out of my radio and into my enthused ears: DJ Fitches’ finely crafted dub-heavy beats topped with Joe Dukie’s silver-tongued vocals all backed by horns & keys supreme.

The infectious energy that starts in the opening bars of ‘Topattumi’ doesn’t let up for a second and for this reason alone should Kila and Oki be on your immediate shopping list

If you love your oriental chill out, you’ll love this! Coined as being a new breed of “downtempo electronica with a Chinese twist” this album is heavily influenced by all things oriental

The cover of this CD is ‘Study for Samson St. Series’ (1998) by Eveline Kotai and it really suits the ambient feel of Solo Andata’s debut release…

Like a quick-growing vine, the songs will travel way up your legs, over your protesting hands and sink into your ears, growing and taking over you all the while. These tracks are a favourite poison that originates from a forest of danger and sex

This EP could easily have been called Essence of Dingwalls as it’s a mini masterpiece of modern jap jazzdance

Dubmission Records tend to be a little low key with there releases so it’s little wonder that their latest album from New Zealand’s Pitch Black has been hiding behind the bass bin.

Desert Slide is a Sense super group featuring Vishwa Mohan & Musicians of Rajasthan combining powerful desert grooves, slide guitars and transcendant vocals

Continuing the global trip, Rough Guides get in touch with Planet Rock

Have you been thinking what happened to the “sophisticated dancefloor sounds from Australia” that we heard last year?

In a world awash with free cover-mount compilations and triple CDs for a tenner, why on earth would you buy Charlie Gillett’s latest round up? Perhaps because you really do get what you pay for…

Ted Levin is the scholar who, to his own surprise, brought the little known throat singing tradition of Tuva to a global audience in 1990. This thought provoking book, investigates the profound consequences for the musical ecosystem of this remote, mountainous republic and attempts to recontextualise the music from the point of view of its practitioners

Describing itself as ‘a collective of explorers dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers’, Seattle-based label Sublime Frequencies has spent the last three years carving itself a niche as one of the world’s finest purveyors of hard-to-find music.

This 12” has been out a while in Japan but has only recently hit UK shores. It turned up in Simon Harrison’s chart not so long ago and as quirky electronic jazz from Tokyo, it’s definitely worth a listen.

It’s not often that Hectic hangs out with stars of radio and TV but as Zane Lowe was in the house today, I took the chance to grab a few words with the man of the brown couch fame.

Marking Gilles Peterson’s long-awaited return to the record label business, is this amphetamine jazz dazzler from the land of the rising sun

Soul Jazz are on top form at the moment and JBP are but a small part of their success.

Fans of reggae outta New Zealand will be well aware of Rhombus but their latest 12” has only just arrived in Hectic’s greedy hands.

Somewhat of an unknown quantity DJ Drez, proves himself to be quite a talent recording, arranging, mixing and producing Jahta Beat in its entirety

Despite high profile champions like Charlie Gillett and great word of mouth, Blue Asia is yet to get a UK release — fret not though — Conon Murphy knows where it’s at…

Guo Yue’s latest Realworld release is a journey through the backstreets of a Beijing that no longer exists via Bath and Budapest.

Jafrosax raises the flag of future jazz.

Music for Crocodiles breaks away from the pack and heads for the lucrative world of big name female vocalists but it does so with charm and a sultry flavour all of its own

The word ‘Orientation’ derives from the practice of aligning churches to point eastwards and carries the added connotations of a direction to travel in, knowledge of where you came from and the beliefs that one holds dear. Thione Seck has made explicit his love of Bollywood and Egyptian music and made one of the most important records of the year in the process

If you wanted to make a CD of the last year of tunes for Fly from a global perspective, you would struggle to do better than this outstanding compilation. A vast amount of music goes to Charlie, gets listened to and filtered for his shows and then filtered again for his compilations. This really is the best of the last year and a good few pointers for the next one too

The wonderful, sonorous sounds of Pandit Ronu Majumdar’s inspired bansuri (flute) transport you to a world far away from the hustle and bustle of Mumbai, his adopted city, and take you on a journey that begins with an achingly mournful sound

Sense World Music have been extremely prolific of late and this is one of the latest releases on its mission of matching great musicianship and top notch recording. Purbayan Chatterjee and Shashank have produced a CD that develops from the ethereal to the earthy and then to the skies

Manickam Yogeswaran (better known as Yoga) is a long-time member of classical vocal group Shout and German crossover outfit Dissidenten (with whom he has appeared at Glastonbury and the Montreux Jazz Festival). He’s also increasingly familiar to movie audiences following excursions on the soundtracks for Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and Spike Lee’s 25th Hour

This is Mr. Fukutomi’s ninth album. It’s said to be his most broad reaching so it should appeal to more than his established fanbase such as: Norman Jay, Danny Krivit and Dimitri from Paris

I’ll admit early on a weakness for breathy, falsetto female vocals a la Sarah McLaughlan, something New Zealand singer-songwriter Tessa Drummond uses in abundance

New Zealand sportsmen have been in the news frequently in the past few days. However, you don’t hear too much (if anything) about their popular music prowess. Fat Freddy’s Drop is now going to redress the balance with the release their first album called, Based On A True Story

Outcaste celebrate a decade of redefining what British and Asian music is, will be and might have been. If many of the tracks seem familiar that is because they are

"There is no essential difference between classical and popular music. Music is music. I want to communicate with the listener who finds Indian classical music remote." Amjad Ali Khan

Warning, an angry hippy has just walked in... Steve Tallis and the Holy Ghosts have released Loko and I wished they hadn't to be honest.

Every now and then you get a CD so immediately lovable and interesting that you wonder if the rest of the country has been listening to this on Top of the Pops while you have been tuning in to Radio 3. You would have to be very po-faced not to love Trickbaby.

By an artist's seventh album, you may think the ideas would be harder to come by, inspiration a little lacking perhaps, but Philtre blows that theory right out, and Nitin Sawhney comes through with his best album to date.

Jazztronik (a.k.a. Ryota Nozaki) has produced an album at a consistently high standard throughout to match the title track's brilliance. In true Samurai fashion, there are ten cutting-edge killer tracks

Subtitled 'Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan: Sounds of the Silk Road', The Rough Guide to the Music of Central Asia celebrates the enormous musical wealth and diversity coming out of these rarely visited lands.

This 3 CD set of Carnatic music virtuoso Sri Lalgudi Jayaraman is a real find. Expect exquisite violin playing with skilled accompaniment

It is hard to imagine a more powerful vocal form of music than the massed power of a Zulu group in full swing. But how would it fare when mixed with an eclectic range of beats and music?

Did my heart lift when I saw a collaboration between a Western guitarist and a Tibetan nun in the post awaiting review? No, it did not. And yet, I feel curiously charmed.

"The most dangerous journey ever undertaken in the search for indigenous music," according to National Geographic. Anthony Copping travels to some of the remotest corners of the earth, records music rarely heard more than 10 miles from where it is made and then puts out an album that hides it all away under a blanket of studio slickness.

Outcaste continues to explore the new Bhangra scene with a collection, which, although not as strong as its predecessor, is still going to inspire a new generation.