Innovatively fusing traditional ethnic musics with state-of-the-art rhythms, the work of Deep Forest was best typified by their 1993 "Sweet Lullaby," which brought together the contemporary sounds of ambient techno with a haunting traditional lullaby from the Solomon Islands. The project was primarily the work of the French keyboardists and programmers Eric Mouquet and Michael Sanchez; after the latter returned from Africa with boxes of records he'd picked up across the continent, he and Mouquet began sampling the native sounds for use with their atmospheric dance tracks, and with the aid of producer Dan Lacksman, their eponymous debut LP appeared in 1993…

The completely unknown debut album of Issam Hajali (Ferkat Al Ard) fuses jazz and folk with Arabic and Iranian influences into unique beauty. Originally released in a limited run of 75 cassette tape copies.

Tales from the North is the much-anticipated new album from leading Uilleann piper Calum Stewart. Inspired by his native North of Scotland, Tales from the North is a celebration of legend, landscape, people and adventure.

Born in Lérida in 1975, Catalan singer/songwriter Roger Mas studied clarinet and saxophone from his early teens, and gradually became interested in ethnic music. A 1996 local radio award kick-started his recording career, which up to 2012 included eight albums, from 1997's Les Flors del Somni to 2012's Ciutat de Barcelona, a collaboration with Catalan folk music ensemble Cobla Sant Jordi. Mas' investigations into traditional, ethnic, and modern musical and linguistic forms have earned him a place as one of the leading Catalan singer/songwriters of his generation.

SONGHOY BLUES is a band whose experiences in Mali have opened their eyes to universal problems plaguing people everywhere. Using the pain and lessons learned from having to leave their hometowns in northern Mali, the band realizes that human rights is a concept that extends far beyond what they have seen with their own eyes and far beyond just the borders of Mali. In order for the band to see their homes restored, they understand the fight must be fought on all fronts, for everybody across the spectrum. They are no longer refugees or exiles or four people with instruments—they are SONGHOY BLUES, a musical voice for empowerment and equality.

The Chhau & Nagpuri Group performs mask dances depicting battles of famous heroes and scenes from Indian mythology as well as village ceremonies, dances and folk songs. The music, played on purely ethnic instruments, is energetic and exciting.

‘Fertile Paradoxes’ is the new studio album from two Tunisian brothers, Amine & Hamza M'raihi. Both are masters of the oud and kanun respectively, the two major instruments of Arabic classical music. ‘Fertile Paradoxes’ is steeped in global rhythms spanning from their homeland in Tunisia to Switzerland where Amine and Hamza currently reside, tour and record. ‘Fertile Paradoxes’ is a classy exploration into time-honoured traditions with new dimensions, across eight tracks of carefully selected dynamic collaborations. The album runs close to seventy minutes of airplay; the shortest track is ‘Letter to God’ at 7:31 and the longest being ‘Spleen’ at 10.49.

The Book of Secrets, the follow-up to 1994's The Mask and Mirror – there was a Christmas EP, A Winter Garden, released in 1995) – finds Loreena McKennitt in the same musical vein, mixing Celtic, Spanish, Italian, and new age to create her own distinct sound. The only problem is that she did not seem to progress much during the time between releases. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since she still knows how to write incredible melodies and layer instruments to produce peaceful images. "Night Ride Across the Caucasus" and "Dante's Prayer" are just two prime examples of this. And she continues her practice of setting classic poetry to music (Alfred Noyes' "The Highwayman").

This 2CD set is a compilation of original field recordings made by David Attenborough between 1954 and 1963. He travelled to remote parts of the world to find and film exotic animals for the BBC television series Zoo Quest. But he was just as interested in the people he met and their music. Whenever he came across musicians, out came his early portable tape machine . "While I was theoretically looking for pythons, in the evenings I would record different types of music."

Wanita is a mild quantum leap from Traore's debut, Mouneissa. The style she cultivated on her debut – a glorious mix of the singer/songwriter with the rootsy, acoustic instruments of her native Mali – is refined here, and she approaches everything with more confidence. She's very much a rarity in African terms, a female singer/songwriter, and one whose lyrics are very progressive, dealing with the rights of women in a patriarchal society. But she's representative of a new generation that has brought forth a lot of professional women, for whom she's become a figurehead.

Compiled in conjunction with Clannad band members, In A Lifetime includes all the hits and two new songs ‘A Celtic Dream’ and ‘Who Knows (Where The Time Goes)’ both produced by Trevor Horn.