One of music's inherent conflicts is that of control. A musician will throw their emotions and creativity into a piece of work, fine-tuning it over the process of several months or even years. And yet the moment the work is placed in the public domain, that control is irreversibly and eternally gone. It takes on its own life if its creator is lucky. If not, it disappears into the ether.

Fortunately for the Danish-born, Berlin-based singer-songwriter Agnes Obel, her debut album 'Philharmonics' has very much found its own flight. It's sparse, disarmingly beautiful songs have connected past the barriers of culture and language to become a pan-European hit, most notably in Obel's former homeland where it spent seven consecutive weeks at #1 as it shot to Double Platinum status. Slowly, it has unveiled its charms across the continent too: it's been certified Platinum in France, Top 10 in the Netherlands and has made major inroads in Germany, Belgium Oust gone# 1} and Switzerland. Appropriately, audiences are discovering the album's beauty for themselves, its message conveyed via word-of-mouth..... much like Adel.