Afro Celt Sound System was a European and African group who fused electronic music with traditional Gaelic and West African music. Afro Celt Sound System was formed in 1995 by producer-guitarist Simon Emmerson, and feature a wide range of guest artists. In 2003, they temporarily changed their name to Afrocelts before reverting to their original name.
Real World Studios is a residential recording studio complex founded by Peter Gabriel and situated in the old Box Mill building in the village of Box, Wiltshire, England, near to the city of Bath. It is closely associated with the Real World Records record label, Real World Publishing, and the WOMAD Festival, whose offices are also based at the complex.
Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, also known by his initials NFAK, was a Pakistani singer, songwriter, and music director. He was primarily a singer of qawwali, a form of Sufi devotional music. Often referred to as the "Shahenshah-e-Qawwali", he is considered by The New York Times as the greatest qawwali singer of his generation and as the fourth greatest singer of all time by LA Weekly in 2016. He was known for his vocal abilities and could perform at a high level of intensity for several hours. Khan is widely credited with introducing Qawwali music to international audiences. He was also a master of Hindustani classical music.
Yungchen Lhamo is a Tibetan singer-songwriter living in the United States. She won the ARIA Award for Best World Music Album in 1995 and was then signed by Peter Gabriel's Real World record label.
Sevara Nazarkhan is an Uzbek singer, songwriter, and musician. She is awarded as People’s artist of Uzbekistan. Her musical style incorporates Uzbek folk and contemporary music. Nazarkhan has achieved worldwide fame and has collaborated with high-profile international artists. In 2004, Nazarkhan received the BBC Radio 3 World Music Award in the category "Best Asian Artist".
Michael Brook is a Canadian guitarist, inventor, music producer, and film music composer. He plays in many genres, including rock, electronica, world music, minimalism and film scores. His collaborations with musicians around the world have made him "one of the most sought-after producers in the music industry." Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Brook lives in Los Angeles. He is the creator of the Infinite Guitar.
Growing Up: Live is a concert film by Hamish Hamilton and Peter Gabriel. It features a live performance from Gabriel's 2003 "Growing Up" tour. The concert is notable for its dynamic set design by Robert Lepage. Also of note is the inclusion of Melanie Gabriel, his daughter, for backing vocals during these concerts. Bonus features include Tony Levin's photo album selections and an interview with Peter Gabriel about the story of Growing Up.
Sheila Savithri Elizabeth Chandra is an English former pop singer of Indian descent. She began her career as an actress in the late 1970s before launching a music career in the early 1980s. Her career ended prematurely in 2009 as a result of burning mouth syndrome.
Gangs of New York: Music from the Miramax Motion Picture is a soundtrack album for the 2002 film, Gangs of New York. The score is by Howard Shore. The rest of the selections are a mix of contemporary pop and world music compositions and tunes from mid-nineteenth century Ireland.
Mustt Mustt is the first Qawwali fusion album collaboration between singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and guitarist and producer Michael Brook, although the album itself is credited purely to Khan. It was rock musician Peter Gabriel who suggested that Brook and Khan work together. It was released in 1990 on Gabriel's Real World Records label.
Night Song is a collaborative studio album by Pakistani qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Canadian ambient musician, guitarist and producer Michael Brook. Recorded in 1995 and released in 1996 on Real World Records, it was Khan's last album released on the label during his lifetime. Khan and Brook had previously collaborated for Mustt Mustt (1990), a critically acclaimed world fusion album said to have led Pakistani youth to discover Sufi religious music. The two had not worked for some time but collaborated again for a new album in 1995, naming the album Night Song. The album was produced by Brook, who developed an innovative but difficult production process for the album. Khan recorded improvisations for the album, and Brook had to decide which sections, some of which were an hour long, were the best and how they were going to fit together, without having a structural point of reference to start with or aim towards. He had components recorded on multi-track tapes, and created each track part by part, overdubbing his instrumentation atop of it, a manual process that predated easy forms of digital editing.
One World One Voice is a world music album intended to raise awareness of environmental issues, produced by Rupert Hine in 1990. A video of the entire album was produced for television together with a "Making of" documentary.
Big Blue Ball is an album by multiple artists which "grew from 3 recording weeks" at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in the summers of 1991, 1992, and 1995. It is Peter Gabriel's fourteenth album project overall.
Most of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's early music was recorded with Rehmat Gramophone House later turned RGH Label. Throughout the ’70s and early ’80s Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan released hundreds of cassettes, most of them containing one or two lengthy songs. Chris Nickson, of Global Rhythm, argues that trying to make order of Khan's entire discography would be a nightmare.
The ARIA Music Award for Best World Music Album, is an award presented within the Fine Arts Awards at the annual ARIA Music Awards. It was inaugurated in 1995 as Best Folk/World/Traditional Release. The ARIA Awards recognise "the many achievements of Aussie artists across all music genres", and have been given by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) since 1987.
Womadelaide '95 is a compilation album of music by artists from Womadelaide in 1995. The songs were recorded live by ABC Radio sound crews. Bruce Elder from the Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the album was "an extraordinary demonstration of how some of the greatest world music acts are reduced by studio technology, and how immensely better they sound when they perform live." The album was nominated the 1996 ARIA Award for Best World Music Album.
Coming Home is an album by the Tibetan musician Yungchen Lhamo, released in 1998 on Real World Records. It was her first album to be released in the United States; she had broken through to American audiences after playing the 1997 Lilith Fair and appearing on the soundtrack to Seven Years in Tibet. Lhamo supported the album by playing a 1998 benefit for Tibet House US as well as the WOMAD festival. Coming Home was banned in Tibet.
Jasdeep Singh Degun is a British Sitar player and composer from Leeds. He is signed to the Real World Records label, on which he released his debut album, Anomaly. In May 2022, he became artist-in-residence at Opera North and in 2024 he was made the first Innovate Fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music. Degun is the first sitar player to be awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Best Instrumentalist Award.
Chain of Light is a studio album by Pakistani qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, published posthumously on 20 September 2024. The album features four traditional qawwali compositions recorded in 1990. It remained unreleased until rediscovered in 2021, after being lost for 27 years. Produced by Michael Brook under the label Real World Records, the album is a part of Khan's collaborations, which began after his appearance at the WOMAD festival.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party, also known as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Qawwali Party, was a Pakistani qawwali musical group, led by singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The group is credited with popularizing the genre of Sufi devotional music outside South Asia. Under the core lineup of Nusrat, the group earned international recognition, performing in major cultural venues and collaborating with artists from various musical traditions. They introduced various musical techniques, such as fusion with traditional qawwali, which contributed to the evolution of the genre. Active during the 20th century, their contributions to world music is recognised one of the prominent contributions in the history of Sufi music. The core lineup of the group comprised Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan, Dildar Hussain, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Nusrat himself.
