WOMAD

Miles Cleret

From United Kingdom

Most young chaps calling themselves DJs don’t go much further in seeking out long-forgotten records than scouting the old car boot or surfing online auction sites in search of gold. But if your name’s Miles Cleret and your particular peccadillo is the rare beast that is Ghanaian Afrobeat, you go the extra mile. Or, in fact, the extra few thousand miles between your home in Brighton and the Ghanaian capital of Accra – where you choose to spend two whole years seeking out lost treasures. The results of this most committed of research trips was Ghana Soundz, the five-star album of vintage sounds that Miles put out on his own Soundway label, an imprint he set up to release obscure African, Latin, jazz and funk tunes from right across the planet. A chum of fellow Afro-centric Brightonian (and WOMAD artiste past) Quantic, Miles’s DJ sets, full to the brim with the funkiest music Africa ever made, really do reach the parts other DJs cannot reach. And he’s got the air miles to prove it...