Five Rivers

For more than 30 years, the British-born Indian singer Najma Akhtar has operated largely beneath the radar, releasing a series of understated but classy albums fusing the Indian semi-classical ghazal style with jazz and other Western forms. Her highest profile came when she sang on Jimmy Page and Robert Plant's 1994 album No Quarter. On her first solo album since 2009's Rishte she focuses for the first time specifically on the canon of Western folk-rock. Yet this is no crossover cop-out; it's a bold metaphorical journey in which she sails down the five rivers of the title – the Ganges, Niger, Thames, Shannon and Mississippi.

The Irish connection comes from her setting of WB Yeats' ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’ while ‘N'goni Taraana’ finds the Ganges flowing into the Niger. Donovan's ‘Young Girl Blues’ is a trip down the Thames and the Rev Gary Davis' ‘Death Don't Have No Mercy’ channels the blues of the Delta. None of the songs sound remotely like the original versions, as Akhtar sings them in a ghazal style in a pure and penetrating voice over a hybrid accompaniment of rock guitars, harmonium, strings , tabla and ngoni.