Roots Travellers World Village***

In terms of its variety, complexity and sheer density, Indian music is like a rainforest – vast, teaming with life, and still largely unexplored by outsiders. Dhoad Gypsies of Rajasthan are a multi-generational family of entertainers who inhabit the dappled light on the forest fringes, where the strange and the exotic may be glimpsed from the safety of the canoe. It’s still a long way from the impenetrable depths of north Indian classical music, and purists will bleat about, well, purity, but it’s definitely in the right territory. Like The Chieftains or The Kilfenora Ceili Band, Dhoad Gypsies are authentic without any of the heavy lifting, but their catchy melodies and intense grooves – a heady blend of Hindustani classical and Sufi devotional music – are hypnotic, joyous and instantly likeable. See worldvillage.com