Confronted with Manfred Leuchter´s music for the first time, one could be forgiven for presuming that the world of music is hard to fathom. Oriental rhythms underpinning jazz jams, exotic instruments vying with accordion? Could this be the dreaded “World Music”?

An appalling title, thought hopefully forgotten, only to be resurrected by fantasyimpaired journalists intent on finding a label for Manfred Leuchter´s work. World Music; it used to an analogy for “ethnicicity”. Sundry tribal sounds thrown into a pot over a cool drum groove, mixed up with the producer´s latest sitar carpet and, barely audible in the background, the last of the High Street Indios puffingpitifully away on on their pan pipes. Not to forget the reggae singer!

Times change. And for that reason, to appreciate the wonders of the, finally, legitimate artform we used to call World Music, you need to do two things:

1. Throw this battered label onto the scrap heap and 2. turn to the unique work of Manfred Leuchter.