The WOMAD Festival is 30 years old this year. This album is a celebration of the wonderful Real World artists who have performed at WOMAD over the years.

The symbiotic relationship between WOMAD and Real World Records was apparent from day one. When, in 1989, the record label was born, it immediately joined its seven-year-old big sister in the vanguard of introducing the world's finest music to our ears. The siblings' alliance was - and still remains - a two-way street. Plenty of artists were signed to the label after first gracing the festival's stages, while almost all of Real World's roster have subsequently trod WOMAD's boards at some point. Quite a few have done so many times.

Both WOMAD and Real World are very much grown-up these days - the festival has now reached the stately age of 30. And this 30-track tribute is an assembly of those Real World artists who've been most closely connected with the festival over the last three decades - from the spirit-of-82 vibes of The Drummers Of Burundi (along with Peter Gabriel's The Rhythm of the Heat, premiered at the first festival all those years ago) right to the present with contributions from Spiro and Portico Quartet.