323: Music and Rhythm: WOMAD 1982-2007, by Various Artists

Various Artists
Music and Rhythm: WOMAD 1982-2007 (2007)
45 tracks, 220 minutes (3 CDs)
Unfortunately I can’t find anywhere to stream, download or buy this compilation. It seems like your best luck would be to lurk around on the album’s Discogs page and see if anything ever crops up. Or alternatively come round to my house and we’ll have a listening session!

I’ve mentioned WOMAD a lot on this blog, but I’m not sure I’ve ever talked about it specifically. So for those not in the know: WOMAD is the World of Music, Arts and Dance, a music festival that started in the UK in 1982 and has since put on events all over the world, with an annual festival in the UK as its flagship event. Nowadays, WOMAD festivals are held every year in Australia, New Zealand, Spain (one in Extremadura and one in Gran Canaria) and Chile as well as in Charlton Park in Wiltshire.

Ever since its founding (famously with the help of Peter Gabriel), the aim of WOMAD has been the same: to present the most exciting music from across the world on one stage*. Many people think of it as a world music festival, but I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. It’s much wider than that. In fact, in its early years, the term ‘world music’ wasn’t even in common parlance (that came about in 1987). Artists from all over the world – from megastars to up-and-comers to humble, unknown masters – are invited to WOMAD, and their style actually matters very little; styles such as rock, hip-hop, jazz and dance music are all represented each year, but not at the sake of traditional, classical, tradimodern or pop styles from anywhere else in the world. I wouldn’t go as far as saying you can hear every type of music at WOMAD, but it’s not too far off.

This compilation was released in 2007, to celebrate 25 years of the festival as well as its first edition in its new UK home, having moved from Reading just that year. It’s a really beautiful thing too. It is all packaged around a 96-page book full of breath-taking photographs from over the years and many interesting, intriguing and amusing recollections from the people involved with the festival, from producers to artists to attendees. And, perhaps most importantly, it comes with three CDs full of great music. It’s not just your usual compilation of tracks taken from albums. Well, some are album tracks that represent important moments from across the festival’s history, but most were recorded live on stage, capturing some of the most special moments that came to define WOMAD as a whole. Although there are too many gems to name them all, there are a handful from the first CD that are extra special: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s ‘Mustt Mustt’, recorded during a stunning all-night performance at WOMADelaide in 1995; Echo and the Bunnymen’s ‘Zimbo’, a live performance at the very first WOMAD in 1982 in Shepton Mallet alongside the Drummers of Burundi, showing exactly the spirit of open-mindedness and equal footing that the festival facilitates; and ‘Raindrops Pattering on Banana Leaves’ by the Tianjin Music and Dance Ensemble, a popular Chinese sizhu piece – this is a recording of the very first piece of music performed at that very first edition. The discs here collect music by artists from at least 28 countries (on my count) and really shows the breadth and depth of the wonderful music that the festival brings to tens of thousands of people every year.

I think to say that WOMAD has changed my life would be less of an understatement and more of an inaccuracy: it hasn’t changed my life because it has formed it. I doubt I would have been a music journalist had WOMAD not existed, nor would I have studied ethnomusicology, nor would I have even heard of a large percentage of my favourite artists. Before I was even one year old, WOMAD has been a crucial element of my life, and no matter what happens in the future, it will always be so. Listening to the music on this triple album is nothing like being there in the flesh, of course, but then WOMAD only lasts for four days a year (unless you can jet-set at will). Music and Rhythm will help you keep the spirit alive for the rest of them.


* Metaphorically speaking, of course. Some of the festivals have one stage, some have many.