Established in 1976, ARC music started out as a one-man operation by Horst Tubbesing, selling Bolivian music out of the back of his car, a Citroen 2CV. It was the first record label exclusively dedicated to the music of different world cultures.

They have come a long way since then and to celebrate this achievement, they are offering the chance to win 35 CDs of your choice from the ARC Music catalogue. With over 700 titles from over 120 countries, there is a lot to choose from! Recent releases include 20 Best of Ireland by Noel McLoughlin and The Very Best of Japanese Music – Shakuhachi, Koto and Taiko Drums – a beautiful collection of classical and modern Japanese music.

You can find the 19-track album available for free on Amazon here and the competition details here.

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Events to watch out for this month across the UK:

EDINBURGH
23rd August Joy Dunlop – Leith Folk Club
26th August A Journey Through Iranian Magham Music – St John’s Church
30th August Sandra MacBeth – Leith Folk Club

WEST MIDLANDS
5th August Quantic and His Combo Barbaro – Hare & Hounds, Kings Heath
12th August Balkanic Eruption Gets Dirty On The Decks – Hare & Hounds
12th August Rush Hour Blues: Ska’d For Life – Oozells Square
17th August Moseley Folk Presents: The Low Anthem – Hare & Hounds
21st August Celtic Clan – The Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath
4th September Jimmy Cliff + Toots & The Maytals – Wolverhampton Civic Hall

EAST MIDLANDS
31st August Dogwood Rose – The Carrington Triangle Folk Club, Nottingham

YORKSHIRE
6th August Boogaloo – The Hifi Club, Leeds
21st August No Fixed Abode – The New Bath Hotel, Sheffield
22nd August Dogwood Rose – The Rising Sun, Nether Green, Sheffield
26th August Dave Burland – Reeth Memorial Hall, Reeth, North Yorkshire

SOUTHWEST
9th August Doris Intercultural Summer School – Clayhidon, Nr Taunton
10th August Toots & The Maytals – Exeter Phoenix, Exeter
25th August The Old School Dance Band – The Exchange, Old Market Hill, Dorset
30th August The Water Tower Bucket Boys – The Quicksilver Mall, Yeovil, Somerset

NORTHWEST
11th August Queen Ifrica & Tony Rebel – Band On The Wall, Manchester
19th August Latino Music Fest – Colston Hall, Manchester
25th August La Tinto Bros – Matt & Phred’s Jazz Club, Manchester
3rd September Mintfest 2011 Bernard Massuir – Brewery Arts Center, Kendal

WALES
23rd August The New Inn Folk Club – The New Inn, Pontblyddyn, Flintshire
25th-29th August AberJazz Festival – Fishguard

Did we miss something? Let us know in the comments. Alternatively, check out our Songlines Gig Guide or Rhythm Passport for more listings.

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Here’s a quick taste of the Balkan madness experienced last year by Joe Walker and Marc Engel – who ventured to Guča on one of the  Songlines Music Travel trips.

To join us for the madness of Guča 2011 or for more information, please visit www.songlines.co.uk/music-travel/tours-festivals-2011/serbia-guca.php

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As an extension of the feature on Raghu in the current issue of Songlines (July 2011 #77), here is the full gallery by photographer Shiv Ahuja during The Rahgu Dixit Project’s India Dekho tour.

As photographer Shiv Ahuja explains, “We covered 6000kms in three days, playing shows in Calcutta, Calicut and Tumkur. What really struck me was that the same music appealed to such a diverse bunch of people. From city people and college students in Calcutta to town folk in Tumkur. Raghu had them all on their feet dancing and jumping about for the duration of the concert. I’m used to seeing indie gigs and small outdoor gigs around the country but the Tumkur gig was a government supported festival with over 30,000 people!”

The Raghu Dixit Project India Dekho Tour – Images by Shiv Ahuja

Shiv Ahuja
Website: www.shivahuja.com
Twitter: @shivahuja
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shivahuja

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“I don’t get it,” said Nell, eyeing me with that expression of untraversable cultural distance which 16-year-old girls reserve only for their fathers. “You’re going to a festival of brass band music with seven total strangers. Like searching for Wallace and Gromit music. With all your goatee mates.” Clearly my attempts to fill the house with Gypsy brass music over the years had failed to provide evidence of the kind of wild sounds I was seeking out by travelling to Guca, deep in the overgrown forests and orchards of west Serbia. I’d been wanting to visit Guca for ages. But this year, its 50th year, was going to be something special and Songlines were planning a tour.

I’d encountered Balkan brass music years before, through the Rough Guide CDs. Its sticking power for me was its perfect tempo for keeping a steady pace on my local gym’s treadmill machines. I can’t tell if that sense of hurtling forward in the music is in its nature or because I heard so much of it while desperately trying – and failing – to keep my desk-job belly at bay.

I’d built up some fear myself of ‘the goatees’ but as it turned out, the group was far from it. A mixture of hardened gig-goers and part-timers like me. By far the most exotic were (as they were to be affectionately referred to throughout the week) “the Americans,” – a retired professor of music, his wife and son from North Carolina. They turned out to be the source of some of the best timed and most urbane jokes of the week.

After a great meal in Belgrade under the wing of tour guide Vlad, it was soon apparent that we were in for something amazing. Namely, Vlad. No quick sketch can do him justice. A man physically halfway between Borat and Bruno, his razor-sharp humour with a definite camp edge had us crying with laughter the whole week. On our first night I learnt a valuable tip from him: how to quickly get rid of those annoying flower sellers that sidle up to your restaurant table offering plastic-looking roses, and more often than not barge into the middle of a great conversation. They always manage to either make you look cheap and tacky for buying their roses – or unromantic and Neanderthal for refusing them. Vlad simply pointed to his female companion: “Allergic,” he said. The salesman slunk away. This was one of those staccato ripostes that cropped up many times during the week; to one hapless flower salesman, Vlad pointed round to a whole table of us. “Allergic,” he said.

Us honorary pollen intolerants had much to thank him for. Vlad was a man who managed to make things happen. The morning after an amazing gig by Boban Markovic with DJ Shantel from Germany, we spotted Boban sauntering through the town. “Boban! Bobay!” shrieked the crowd around him. Boban sauntered on, in his own bubble. “Songlines!” shouted Vlad. Boban turned on his heels and beamed. Seconds later, all of us are posing with the great man for a photo. A few hours before the Goran Bregovic concert to a crowd numbering tens of thousands, Vlad managed to shepherd us all backstage to natter with the legend about projects past and future.

The highlight of it all, though, was an evening when Vlad told me, in a low voice: “Stay here, in this café, trust me.” Looking out over the town I could see revellers partying in every direction. Shots of rakia being hawked in test tubes by leggy girls and necked by good-natured youngsters, bopping along to hundreds of vein-bursting brassmen. I could see flag-waving from a kid perched on top of the town statue. I’d promised to meet up with a lady photographer I’d met, and somewhere out there was beautiful Maryam, from the Persian section of the BBC. There was a lot tugging my centrifugal nature away from this rather boring café. “Please Joe, trust me. Sit here, at this table,” said Vlad. Moments later, I could see bouncers appear at the doors, keeping newcomers at bay. And then it happened. A Montenegrin millionaire’s party at the table four feet from ours was suddenly joined by the entire Markovic band with Marko leading a three-hour private set into the wee hours, his golden trumpet just an arm’s length from us. Our little Songlines tour group spent the night dancing on the tables – it had to be the most euphoric musical atmosphere I have ever been a part of.

I’m in the film business and my current project, Life in a Day, involves masses of material gathered by amateur filmmakers, so I was inspired to try my hand at documentary camerawork and capture something of the festival. I arrived at Guca tooled up with a little digital camera and a sound recording device. Like the Ancient Mariner, I now corner friends and show them my little shot of Marko Markovic, taken between the bouncing legs of the Serbian giant on the table in front of me, the sound emerging from a poxy, pinhole speaker. How can one capture this way the unbelievable noise of two Gypsy brass bands fighting to be the loudest in one tiny enclosed space? Or the vision of girls dancing on the table as their boyfriends slap spittle-wettened banknotes on horn-players’ foreheads to urge them to play on? If I’ve learnt anything significant from my experience in Guca this August, it was this: put the camera down. Don’t be at any remove from such experiences. Take part!

www.songlines.co.uk/music-travel

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It’s already causing controversy! Murmurs of disapproval (and approval) and even the old issue that has dogged world music since the term was coined – is English folk music world music? – have been appearing on internet forums and blogs.

Robin Denselow’s Guardian blog Why I welcome the new world music chart praises the attempt to raise the profile of world music artists, but questions the criteria for inclusion. Where, he asks, is all the folk music? Martin Simpson, whose new album was the biggest seller at Cambridge Folk Festival this summer, is strangely absent. The OCC’s Phil Matcham has said that while there are no set rules, the Official UK World Music Album Chart is ‘mostly non-British’. But that hasn’t excluded London klezmer band Oi Va Voi from the opening chart, begging the valid point made by a contributor to the fRoots online forum that to discriminate against folk music for being of Anglo-British origin is surely as wrong as to discriminate against folk music that is not.

All charts evolve, and at the same time all charts must decide on what they will cover. The beauty if music is that it will endlessly elude our categorisations but it will all continue to delight – whatever it’s called.

Let us know what you think by emailing letters@songlines.co.uk

Catch up with the new Official UK World Music Album Chart in the latest issue of Songlines

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