Beginner’s Guide to India

This sprawling introduction to the music of the Indian subcontinent is compiled by British Asian presenter Lopa Kothari – of BBC Radio 3’s World on 3 – and is a transnational affair, taking in the Indian diaspora and washing away the 1947 partition borders.

The first CD is entitled ‘India Now’. Refreshingly, this doesn’t mean ‘big club beats’. The music is strikingly mellow and elegant. British Asian Nitin Sawhney delves into his love of flamenco with Barcelona’s Ojos de Brujo and Toronto-based Autorickshaw are audacious enough to cover Leonard Cohen’s ‘Bird on a Wire’ with a melody line based on an Indian raga. CD2 – ‘Indian Legends’ – opens with the towering qawwali voice of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and also includes Abida Parveen, a rare female star of Sufi devotional singing. There are Bollywood playback queens Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar and the lesser known Lollywood (Lahore's early film industry) queen Noor Jehan. On the instrumental side, the hauntingly beautiful shehnai (double-reed pipe) of Bismillah Khan is the highlight.

The third CD's attempt to introduce the listener to ‘Indian Folk & Classical’ is ambitious, but this is a great bluffer's guide to Indian music in 75 minutes. It won't leave you an expert, but you might pick up the difference between your northern Indian Hindustani and your southern Indian Karnatic, your sarangi (short-necked fiddle) from your santoor (hammered dulcimer) and your Nagaland tribal field recording from your wandering Bengal Bauls.

This is a fascinating guide, giving the listener a sweeping sense of the subcontinent's musical landscape. Possibly the most astounding sound on show is that of Wasifuddin Dagar, a 20th-generation dhrupad singer who creates the most incredible hypnotic rhythms.