Delving into the deepest recesses of raï, this compilation serves as a tribute to its roaring years, but also as a rejuvenation of the genre in its sulphurous, subterranean version. It seemed like a good idea to dig into nearly untraceable cassettes, thus confirming it’s in the oldest of Oranese pots that the very best of raï is to be found. Just 50 years ago, no one would have believed even a bit in a genre seemingly bound to forever turn round and round in its native Oran, laying low in one of its many coastal road clubs.

In the margin of official religious institutions, Catholic confraternities and Muslim orders offered a mystical experience. Music played an important role in their rituals, as a way of access to God. Simple, repetitive, haunting, this music sung in groups during processions or devotional meetings was intended to place the assembly in a state of ecstatic trance.

Habibi Funk is happy to present a selection of works by Algerian-born, Amazigh artist Majid Soula. With synths, driving drums, prominent repetitive guitar lines, Majid’s music blends the best of Kabyle sounds, disco, highlife and groovy funk into something wholly unique. At the same time for Majid Soula music is a vessel for his political message.

Omar Souleyman's 5th studio album Erbil pays homage to Erbil, Iraq - the city that offered solace and embraced Souleyman and his band during recent uneasy times. The move to Erbilcame rich with new experiences and friendships b e s tcelebrated as Omar Souleyman knows best; in joyous song dedicatedto this new chapter of life. Erbil's 8tracks see the Syrian wedding singer turned global electronic music icon again teaming up with his longtime keyboard player Hasan Jamo alo for an ever ambitious and forward thinking techno-meets-Dabke sound."

Sahrawi singer-songwriter activist Aziza Brahim’s fifth album Mawja (Wave in Hassaniya Arabic) is fashioned from a simple but powerful foundational palette: Saharan and Iberian percussion entwining with stately guitars and warm, enveloping bass.

Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate come across like the Odd Couple of Malian music. Toure is the tall, bespectacled veteran with the long fingers and a wide grin, looking very relaxed as he settles down to play a loping riff on his acoustic guitar. Diabate is younger, shorter, more intense, arranging himself in front of his kora, the ancient, multi-stringed west African harp. When you see him on video, you can’t quite believe just how quickly his fingers dance around all those strings.

One of the most renowned and uncompromising entities working in 21st century avant-garde Arab-Levantine art and music, Jerusalem In My Heart presents a new album of vital and haunting electronics and electroacoustics, framed by founder and producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh’s spoken and sung Arabic, buzuk-playing and sound design. Qalaq is the most distilled, variegated and finely wrought Jerusalem In My Heart album to date – featuring a different guest/collaborator on every track, yet as cohesive, emotionally resonant, sonically adventurous and narratively powerful as any release in JIMH’s celebrated discography. Guests across the album's 13 tracks include Moor Mother, Tim Hecker, Lucrecia Dalt, Greg Fox, Beirut, Alanis Obomsawin, Rabih Beaini and many more.

Franco-Algerian collective Acid Arab are releasing their third album: ٣ (Trois). The ten tracks on this eagerly-awaited record are serious dancefloor bangers, and will also be providing delightful private listening experiences, thanks to their sophisticated production and to the intriguing, diverse performances by eight guest vocalists from North Africa, Syria & Turkey: Wael Alkak, Cem Yldiz, Ghizlane Melih, Khnafer Lazhar, Sofiane Saidi, Fella Soltana, Cheb Halim & Rachid Taha.

Even when paying homage to the Moroccan music she grew up with, vocalist Natacha Atlas can't help but let the multicultural and modern seep in. With bossa nova, Western pop, and just a thin slice of electronica figuring into the mix, the "back to my roots" album Mish Maoul is a rich collection of music that doesn't sound decorated but natural coming from an artist who prides herself in being a musical nomad. Easy to believe a nomad's memories of her homeland would be foggy and sentimental, and easy to believe the modern nomad's soundtrack would sound something like this – only something like this because this is far and away Atlas' most personal album. Suitably, she seems totally in charge of its construction, making interesting production choices with the help of Temple of Sound, Timothy Whelan, and others. For someone who has worked with Transglobal Underground, Art of Trance, and Jah Wobble in the past, the restraint Atlas uses on the rhythmic and ritualistic "Hayati Inta" is surprising and creates an intoxicating tension with only a slight bit of electric guitar revealing this isn't a field recording.

It would have been groundbreaking enough for the Israeli Ofra Haza to have performed an album of Yemeni Jewish songs. But when she and producer Bezalel Aloni added synthesizers, drum machines, and a generous helping of dance beats, they ended up creating one of the seminal records of world music–one of the very first ethno-techno releases whose reverberations extended into dance clubs around the globe, most especially with "Galbi." While its contemporary sound might make it seem shallow, there really is a lot of depth here, the lyrics coming from the poetry of 16th-century rabbi Shalom Shabazi. Along with fellow spirits like Dissidenten, Haza helped pave the way for Transglobal Underground, Natacha Atlas, and Banco de Gaia.

Eric Truffaz has covered a lot of ground - both literally and metaphorically - since releasing his first album on the Blue Note label in 1996. Recorded in several locations but cut to sound like a single concert, Face-a-Face reveals the success of this artist who, with consistency and determination, has travelled a long road to success that has been filled with detours, long stretches in the fast lane and occasional pit stops, but which has never veered away from the source of his originality and the happiness of his waking dream. For Truffaz, each concert is a chance to meet his public "face à face". And it's this exchange between musicians and their audiences - the source of his inspiration - that Truffaz has set out to recreate in venues across the world (a point he makes between two tracks on the album) from Mexico, Saint Petersburg and Madrid to Bombay, Lausanne, and Paris.

Jordi Savall examines 500 years of history in this portrait of a city that symbolises like no other the fruitful, and at the same time, conflictual encounter of the three monotheistic religions. The succession of the Zirid, Almoravid, Almohad and Nasrid dynasties, their relationship with the neighbouring Christian kingdoms and the often precarious situation of the Jews (the first inhabitants of this area) are reflected in this wide musical fresco, in which each culture displays its most advanced refinement.

This feast for the ears almost defies classification. Richard Horowitz is probably best known for his award-winning score to the Bernardo Bertolucci movie, The Sheltering Sky. Featured on the album is Tehran singer Sussan Deyhim; her voice is extremely expressive in an "x-tatic" Middle Eastern style, with its distinctive embellishments and phrasing. Horowitz takes recordings of her voice and layers it in subtle yet exotic tapestries and harmonies. This is not the ripoff sampling done so often on ambient dance albums. Deyhim's voice is the center of the compositions, and her artistry is always honored. At times, her combined voices sound like the Manhattan Transfer, but when the title track features 84 recombined samples of her voice, the result is very unique. Although the sound processing is important, the album features many live musicians, including world music expert Jaron Lanier and members of the Moroccan National Radio and Television Orchestra. Majoun offers layers upon veils of mysteries and never stoops to trite Middle Eastern musical clichés. Highly recommended.