Are you reading this at the Larmer Tree festival, in a tent in Dorset? Or at the Mostar World Music Festival in Bosnia, the Telemark International Folk Music Festival, or the Kaustinen Folk Festival in Finland? Perhaps you can’t wait for next weekend’s Calgary Folk Fest, or Dranouter in Belgium, or the Festival Interceltique de Lorient in Brittany. Perhaps you’re just back from the Rainforest World Music Festival in Malaysia.

The summer festival is essential for lovers of world music. It is not yet easy to find online, and increasingly hard to find on the radio. Charlie Gillett, in the notes to Otro Mundo, the new instalment of his annual world round-up, asks why songs “as great as music has ever been” never receive “mainstream airplay on broad-minded radio stations ... It is a scandal that all these artists are so completely and utterly sidelined by people who should know better.” But a festival offers a chance to taste 30 or 40 unknown acts over the course of a long weekend.