TuneSmith

Birdy

Birdy

When? You’re itching to take flight

Why? It’s woozy, charming home-grown folk

At just 15 years old, this bird may be yet to fly the nest, but Jasmine van den Bogaerde’s spinetingling voice has her marked out as a future star. Best known for her stunning cover of Bon Iver’s ‘Skinny Love’, she’s followed it up with a debut album of cool cover versions that takes in the XX, Phoenix, the National, Fleet Foxes, and James Taylor’s ‘Fire & Rain’. With ‘Without A Word’, however, she demonstrates her own songwriting talent (apparently put to one side while she finished her GCSEs). Although the album may on occasion swerve dangerously close to the middle of the road, but her huge voice and simple piano/guitar arrangements keep it haunting and memorable throughout. If Birdy can hold her nerve and keep away from diving into over-sweetened commercial waters, she may just fledge into an artist who really soars high.

Various

World Routes: On The Road

When? You’re up for an adventure

Why? It’s a genre-hopping, border-crossing journey

Jumping at the chance to record musicians inside a volcano isn’t a normal career move for most people, but BBC Radio 3’s Lucy Duran goes that extra one or two thousand miles to capture the magic of some of the world’s best music-makers. As the presenter of the World Routes show, she has recorded music in canoes, snowdrifts, Turkish baths, yurts and jungles, from Mali to Madagascar, China to Venezuela, and back again. Celebrating 10 years of broadcasting, this truly wonderful compilation captures the highlights of her musical adventures. Sounding anything but academic, this is a rich and absorbing trek across the planet taking in music from Cape Verde, South India, Georgia, Uganda and elsewhere. Well-known names such as Toumani Diabaté are to be found next to incredibly rare and evocative local music styles. This compilation is a treasure chest of sounds, but what’s more it proves that culture and musical innovation can survive when threatened by the reality of war – or just the commercial onslaught of MTV.

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