This is the 10th year that the Womad festival has been held at Rivermead, and the event has now become a reliable fixture in the English summer calendar.

This year, the musical mix was eclectic as ever, and it didn't matter that many of the headliners (Femi Kuti, Asian Dub Foundation, Afro-Celt Sound System, Billy Bragg) had appeared elsewhere in the country in recent weeks.

Womad is famous for its surprises, and this year's success was an outfit called Yat-Kha, exponents of Tuvan throat-singing from the Asian steppes, situated between Siberia and Mongolia. The drummer was dressed as Dennis Hopper circa Easy Rider, and lead singer Albert Kuvezin like an old-fashioned hippy - and the music was equally startling. Kuvezin sang in a deep growl and added guitar power chords to the wailing backing. The songs seemed mostly to be about horses, or famous uprisings against feudal oppression, and the unexpectedly accessible melodies had strange echoes of the blues, country and even Irish ballads.

Much of the other best music came from further south in Asia: the Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali Group are headed by two nephews of the greatest exponent of Sufi devotional music, the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and, like him, they are bravely experimental, playing one set of classical works, and another set accompanied by members of Fun-Da-Mental in a passionate percussion and vocal workout.

Asian Dub Foundation, with their distinctive blend of angry, highly political but idealistic British rap, were another highlight, while, out on the main open-air stage, the emphasis was on Africa. The re-formed multi-racial South African band Juluka, featuring Johnny Clegg and an increasingly confident Sipho Mchunu, provided a nostalgic reminder of their brave work back in the apartheid era, but they could do with some stronger new material to make the most of their glorious harmony work if they are still to compete in the adventurous new African market.

Ernest Ranglin, the veteran Jamaican jazz guitarist who once pioneered the ska scene, showed how it can be done. His fluid, rhythmic rapid-fire guitar lines were matched against the kora and talking drums of his West African musicians, providing the perfect soundtrack for a hot summer evening.