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Hiphop fans make a virtue of telling it how it is. Well, there’s no-one out there who tells it better than Sister Fa.

It’s a dance record galvanized for the groove; it’s a John Pirozzi film that takes a serious responsibility for the band’s material and details commitment to Cambodian heroes.

‘It's me. I’m alive.’ Yoko Ono, startling and challenging as ever.

An album with a range of references stretching from a lazy Delta blues to the yearnings of Urdu devotionals. By Najma Akhtar and Gary Lucas.

Guitars blast, synthesizers go mad and a group of gospel harmonizers strain for the heavens as sitar strings twang. By Cornershop

CDs that didn't quite make a full review, but are still worthy of a mention.

Starting where founding father of afrobeat Fela Kuti left off, this album features energetic tracks of sweaty inventiveness.

For all its ancient antecedents, Siwan is a very modern album and a joyous meditation for that.

An odd title, given the political geography of Israel/Palestine, this album projects a vision of multicultural music that seems to have little space for Palestinian musicians.

An album that is very much the sound of a modern-day freedom fighter.

Accompanied by a wide range of sound for this latest outing – jazzy horns, strings and the kamele ngoni (harp) played by trusty sidekick Benego Diakite – Seya is an album that simply flows.

Listeners familiar with the harder sounds of Yothu Yindi are in for a surprise. The 12 songs on Gurrumul display an altogether softer side of their author.

Subtitled '18 Songs for Music Lovers', Easy Come, Easy Go is a double album containing a wide choice of songs: from Brian Eno's 'How Many Worlds' to Dolly Parton's 'Down from Dover'

An album loaded with the instrumentation - fiddle, steel guitar, banjo and mandolin - of American roots music.

Congo’s amazing disabled rhythm-maestros Staff Benda Bilili

Sissoko’s warm-toned vocals and fluid kora work, counterpointed by Stone’s banjo-picking make for a wonderfully expansive sound on Africa to Appalachia

Funked-up Hebrew rap, full of asides about booze, girls and – this is one you wouldn’t find with Enimem – gefilter fish.

Pashm’s band – a judicious mixture of Greek, Jewish and Balkan musicians – belt along with brass, baglamas, woodwind and lyres at their disposal.

Waitless by Empty Boat

Mother-Earth! Father-Sky! by Huun-Huur-Tu featuring Sainkho