- By Jon Pareles

Music from all over the world floods into New York City year round, but especially in summertime. That’s when outdoor stages supplement clubs and theaters, and free concert series can introduce audiences to music with lower commercial profiles.

This summer’s world music concerts include return visits by superstars who will have expatriate fans singing along with hits, like the Brazilian songwriter Carlinhos Brown, who is at the Nokia Theater tonight, and the Mexican rock superstars Café Tacuba, at Central Park SummerStage on July 14. And because it seems that everyone wants to be heard in New York City, this summer also brings a rare event like the July 21 SummerStage concert of music by 12 acts from Sudan, which is now torn by civil war and genocide.

Not so long ago, world music — the usefully vague marketing category, not the music itself — romanced isolation. A new album or a concert promised a rare chance to share what people half a world away were dancing to all night long, or a ceremony formerly closed to outsiders or sounds shaped through generations of a particular family or a village. Of course, the fact that the music had traveled at all was the beginning of the end of that isolation, for both the musicians and their new audiences.

Now there’s a circuit of world music festivals where Irish fiddlers regularly run into Guinean griots and Lebanese oud players. There are world music concert producers who draw connections across national and stylistic boundaries, like the World Music Institute, whose continent-spanning Gypsy Caravan has now been preserved as both CD and documentary. Although world music performers are well aware of the importance of tradition, they aren’t so purist that they’re afraid to experiment. Why not, since their music is already being sampled and mixed by everyone from hip-hop producers to lounge D.J.’s, who care only about the sounds, not the pedigree.

Albums that were once stocked only by the most comprehensive record stores are now much easier to find than the surviving comprehensive record stores themselves, at online sites like calabashmusic.com and emusic.com. Information that used to be tucked into academic enclaves or shared by word of mouth is now easily accessible at sites like worldmusiccentral.org, afropop.org and worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com.

Meanwhile, musicological forays that once meant journeys deep into the outback — where satellite TV and Internet connections are now wreaking cultural changes — have been supplemented lately by visits to the archives of local labels. Hearing world music has always been a kind of vicarious travel, and now it’s more like time travel than ever. What follows is a selection of some of the most notable world music CDs released over the last year.

‘AUTHENTICITé : THE SYLIPHONE YEARS’ (Stern’s Music)

After Guinea gained independence in 1958, its government supported regional and national big bands to nurture “authenticité”: modern music with traditional roots and politically correct messages. In songs recorded for the Syliphone label from 1965 to 1980, authenticité ended up wildly untraditional, mixing ancient griot songs and local rhythms with Afro-Latin and American borrowings, horn sections, electric guitars and keyboards (complete with distortion), suave vocals and dizzying beats. The 28 songs collected on this double album range from delightful to downright mind-boggling, testimony to how well musicians can subvert specifications.

CARLINHOS BROWN “A Gente Ainda Não Sonhou” (Sony International)

Like other titans of Brazilian pop, the songwriter Carlinhos Brown wants it all: history and sensuality, melody and rhythm, comfort and startling technology. His new album apparently aims for an international market, with two songs in English and a flamenco-pop hybrid for Europe, and it loses its balance. Its best songs, like “Página Futuro,” “Te Amo Familia” and “O Aroma da Vida,” blend kindly melodies with smart constructions of beats and samples. But they’re outnumbered by gooey ballads.

KEVIN BURKE AND CAL SCOTT “Across the Black River” (Loftus)

Born in England to Irish parents and now living in Portland, Ore., Kevin Burke is one of the great living Celtic fiddlers. His first album on his own label is a collaboration with the self-effacing guitarist Cal Scott and various guests that’s cozy and mature, full of modest tributes to fellow fiddlers. It’s all straightforward, songful melody, until Mr. Burke gets to a set of reels that show how many trills, twists and curlicues he can add without losing that singing line.

FANFARE CIOCARLIA “Queens and Kings” (Asphalt Tango)

The Romanian brass band Fanfare Ciocarlia has already proved itself in the breakneck, muscular oompah tunes of its own Gypsy music, which has never been shy about incorporating funk or jazz. “Queens and Kings” goes international, as the band backs up Gypsy singers from around Eastern Europe, including the witchy-voiced Hungarian singer Mitsou and the cutting-voiced Bulgarian singer Jony Iliev, all with raucous good humor. The album’s last oompah extravaganza isn’t Romanian: It’s “Born to Be Wild,” recorded for the soundtrack of “Borat.”