I am not privy to the cult of Charlie Gillett, the BBC radio deejay. Throughout my teens in Britain I was a devotee of John Peel & used to listen to his "Perfumed Garden" show on pirate Radio Caroline until I fell asleep (after years of Radio Luxembourg on the shortwave under the covers). Peel was a world music pioneer but I think he was jockeyed into a more mundane gig by the BBC while they have turned the fringes over to Gillett and other later arrivals. Gillett gets a lot of reverence from blurbists but his own compilation seems diffused and a bit too middle-of-the-road, but you know that's what makes a success sometimes. Besides, this year's music seems average so far and therefore stuff that is only marginally good tends to get noticed. Though it's only mid-2004 Gillett has plumped for a year's worth of music in this round up which spans two CDs. But because it's so long it gets flaccid. The first cut is very intriguing: a Brasilian hip-hop reggae sample with weird found lyrics, including a bit of Bollywood. It's called "Xin" by Fat Marley and then two hours later we get to another ambient dubby thing called "Hope" by Fat Freddy's Drop which nicely ties things up with a big bow. It also shows the global trend towards obesity! In between there are some obvious choices: Ojos de Brujo, Kekele, Tinariwen, Souad Massi, Abyssinia Infinite, Lo'jo.

I'm tired of mediocre music and there are abundant slack tracks: the previously unreleased Khaled track "Madre" is bad disco. There's a weird return to Africa by Kanda Bongo Man (now resident in Birmingham, England) where he tackles the sound of Soweto. There's a guy called Gianmaria Testa who thinks he's Paolo Conte. There's a lousy French chanteuse Carla Bruni who does a dated, heavy-breathing thing. More French rap from Ghetto Blaster. C'est terrible! The good news, I suppose, is there's nothing sensational we hadn't heard of, so we are not as far out of the world loop as we feared out here on the Western shelf. The hottest track, "Carolina" by Bucovina Club vs Taraf de Haidouks, is sure-fire top ten material. But not much else is that stellar. There's a good piece from Brasil "A Danca da moda" by DJ Dolores y Orchestra Santa Messa I hadn't heard before, and there's a nice stretch midway through the second disc which has fado and a Venezuelan piece, followed by Taffetas (from Switzerland and Guinea-Bissau.) Other than a tendency to MOR (one flamenco cut by Tango Lorca would fit right in on Radio Three's light classical music roster), this is a decent slice of the year-to-date. Let's hope there's better to come.