WOMAD hasn't suffered from the surfeit of festivals or falling attendance or a shortage of headline bands.

Weekend tickets were up 29 per cent, with around 35,000 people on site each day. But it's a niche festival, of course, and a trusted brand after 29 years. People go to WOMAD not just for headline bands - this year it was Rodrigo & Gabriella, Baaba Maal, Brooker T Jones and Gogol Bordello - but for a different festival experience.

The most electrifying performance wasn't any of the above but an extraordinary vocalist from Mali called Khaira Arby. I was introduced to her more than 20 years ago in Timbuktu by the great Malian bluesman Ali Farka Touré when I was making programmes for Radios 1&4. The woman who was then a "promising young singer" is now a commanding Mama Mali with gorgeous blue robes and a funky young band wielding electric guitars. With a voice like Sahara desert silver, she is now a big name in Mali and deserves a worldwide audience.

One of the unique benefits of WOMAD is seeing artists like this not just on a big stage but in an intimate context. The Taste the World stage brings music, food and informal conversation together as Khaira Arby tells about the herbs that grow after the rains in Timbuktu, the Savoy Family Band create a real Cajun kitchen and Inner Mongolian band Anda Union, another great discovery of the festival, share their dumplings and fire-water. Anda Union do other-worldly throat singing and play galloping songs that sweep you away with their horse-head fiddles. This is a band we're sure to be hearing more of.

The best moments come on the more-intimate Charlie Gillett and Radio 3 stages. One of these was the Tori Ensemble from South Korea who won a Korean-wide competition for a WOMAD slot.

Korean music comes from another aural universe and suffers in an environment where you dart from one thing to another. But stop and listen and it cleanses the soul. This extraordinary quartet of vocals, plucked zither, percussion and reeds was refreshing and unlike anything you'd hear anywhere else.