As Komedia gears up for its second world music season, programmer Laurence Hill says he has learnt two things - there's no better way to get a Brighton audience dancing and "you won't have any idea how many people are in these bands until they actually turn up".

Inspired by the vibrancy and popularity of the world music festivals, Komedia launched Globalista last year in an attempt to create the leading world music season outside of London, bringing 11 different countries to the South-East with 14 exponents of the strongest rhythms, most charismatic performances and best party atmospheres they had to offer.

And it succeeded, presenting such a comprehensive cross-section of the modern global music scene that aficionados skipped Womad in Globalista's favour.

This year Hill, himself an avid world music fan, has approached his task in a similar vein - keeping tabs on who's touring, "reading Songlines and Folk Roots rather than NME and Mojo", and trying to balance his own wish-list with "a representative programme of what's really going on at the moment in the world music scene".

The number of events has been reduced to nine in order to "concentrate on bringing in really high-profile acts" but the programme still spans seven different countries - and boasts surely the only appearance on a Brighton stage by a bona fide fakir.

"I'm not entirely sure what the fakir does," says Hill of the Jaipur Kawa Brass Band's star attraction (June 19), "but I'm really looking forward to finding out. Fakirs are known to have mysterious powers so there might well be snakes - or people appearing mid-set in puffs of smoke."

While last year's emphasis was on Brazilian music, Hill's success in securing this "wild, crazy wedding band - an absolute riot of noise and colour that's a million miles from your traditional British brass band", inspired him to give the second Globalista a strong Indian flavour.

So tonight's opening act are the Bollywood Brass Band, who play along to projected Bollywood films with a mix of dhol and trombone, tabla and sax, while on July 1 you can catch the cutting-edge British Asian beats of State Of Bengal, "chilled and clubby, and a huge influence on bands such as Massive Attack".

Elsewhere you can see Candido Fabre and his blistering Cuban 12-piece (June 16), South African guitarist Shiyani Ngcogo (June 22), bellydancing and Arabic drumming with The Flying Carpet (June 24), leading Brazilian singer Monica Vasconcelos (July 14) and upbeat Argentinians La Chicana Tango (July 22).

Hill is particularly looking forward to Mabulu (July 30), who he has been trying to book ever since he saw them play here three years ago. They "take traditional Mozambique dance tunes but pair them with two great young rappers".

But, despite the years of passion and negotiation that have gone into this programme, nothing sums up the spirit of Globalista more than the acts who wind up by surprise on Hill's doorstep.

"Just in the last week we found this amazing support act for Shiyana Ngcogo," he enthuses. "There's this guy called Mthombeni, a South African Shangaan guitarist. He lives in a grass hut in the middle of nowhere but it turns out he's going to be visiting some friends over here that week - so he's going to come and play too."