TuneSmith

The Very Best

Warm Heart Of Africa

When? You want to hear what might just be the future of pop

Why? This is music of truly global proportions

The Very Best’s music is so international it feels like a United Nations of dance-pop. Except their schtick isn’t really dance-pop or any other standard genre at all. They’ve brilliantly crafted a startlingly unique, joyous sound that is as multi-national as the band itself. Hailing from France, Malawi and Sweden, via Clapton in east London, their almost euphoric songs spring out at the listener before at once confusing and dazzling with what could be called an Afro-electro high. Where Vampire Weekend joined West African hi-life to indie rock, and MIA coated dancehall in bhangra, the Very Best take today’s modern pop soundscape and fill it with glorious African zeal. Johan Karlberg and Etienne Tron's electronic beats fuse so well with Esau Mwamwaya's Malawian singing, that you can’t help but think this is likely to become a hugely influential record. And rightly so.

Portico Quartet

Isla

When? You ain’t got that swing no more

Why? This thoroughly modern jazz outfit have created quite a stir

Being nominated for the 2008 Mercury Music Prize seems to have given Portico Quartet the confidence to take their beguiling minimal, but softly electrifying, post-jazz sound to a bold place where they are the only ones who have dared to turn up. Recorded by John Leckie (who produced the Stone Roses first album), this is a mesmerising collection of tuneful but brave pieces, all hooked around the distinctive, otherworldly qualities of the hang drum. On stage this looks like they are attempting to extract music from a large barbecue, but their ghostly sound is anything but raw or burnt. Exotic wisps of saxophone, gut-felt twangs of double bass, spooky electronics, and the bewitching echo of the trademark drum, all amalgamate into a sound that is very much their own. Right now, there’s simply no one else making jazz sound so contemporary and spellbinding.

Journalist, DJ and music consultant Rob Wood is director of Music Concierge, which provides bespoke music-programming services to hotels. Email him at: rob@musicconcierge.co.uk