Album of the week: Devla, Blown Away to Dancefloor Heaven from Boban i Marko Markovic on Piranha Records

Welcome to our last round the world music adventure for the year and for the decade....how did that happen ? Well what can you do in hour, apart from play some tunes, share the studio with Mel and reflect on 2009.

For me 2009 will standout as a year for nostalgia, the dug up vinyl and for the prolific output of the music blogs. My thanks to Likembe, Matsuli, Global Groovers, Electric Jive, Freedom Blues amongst others, for turning me onto many a great tune. The marketability of retro over new tunes saw many a great release this year including Stern's Francophonic Volume 2, Analog Africa's Legends of Benin and Echos Hypnotiques, Andre Marie-Tala's Bend Skin Beats on RetroAfric and the Mulatu Astatke retrospective on Strut.... but one label that got me hitting the search button, reading many a wikipedia page, googling and wandering around the Latin Pacific, the Caribbean and also Ghana, is the Brighton based, Soundway label.

Fitting then, that we kick off today's broadcast with the Exciters and a track that got Soundway Boss, Miles Cleret worked up enough to head out to Panama to find more from whence that came...the result a three cd series...

One of the perks of producing a radio broadcast is I get to take in a lot of live gigs. A downside is sometimes you can get a bit overloaded dangerously close to jaded and synical but amongst the outstanding performances of 2009, Rango were entrancing, an instant Sudanese party. For the experienced or for Rango virgins, an upbeat track from their e.p. follows The Exciters.

In a tribute to the blogs,"Our Where In The World" track is a piece of dug up vinyl posted on one of the less busy blogs. Possibly with its unfair share of chicken coup grit or misuse as a frisbee, we tried to clean up some of the snap crackle and pop, to bring a Stones influenced slice of Zambian rock.

Released in Europe and awaiting it UK release our album of the week comes form Father and Son, Boban and Marko Markovic, Devla : Blown Away to Dancefloor Heaven.

2009 has been an extraordinary year for Sue Miller celebrating 10 years of Trans Atlantic adventures from Leeds to Havana, this year saw her band Charanga Del Norte, supporting Orchestre Aragon as part of the Cuban music celebrations in London's Barbcan. She also found time to submit a paper which one a British Ethnomusicology award. For our tribute we play a track from back in 1999..composed and arranged by Sue.

One of the overlooked albums of 2009, for me, came from Haiti's Ti Coca and Wanga Neges so we manage to squeeze in a track - plus staying in the Caribbean, we have a pick from the latest addition to the Gondwana crew. Too young to talk, we judged his favourite by the amount of leg kicking going on, its Calypso Rose.

We finish off the broadcast with a cut from Vieux Farka Toure Remixed, DJ Umb and Peter Pozorek apply their magic...names to watch for 2010.

Happy New Year and I hope you hear something you enjoy.

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