Welcome to another show, in which Joe guides us around some of the weirder, smokier corners of the broad church of hip hop, and discussion returns to how far genre can stretch and where originality can reside in a multi-channel, everything-available-at-once world. We also take a listen to more and less authentic sounds of South America courtesy of a Brit-in-Colombia, a Colombian Brit, and a legend of British underground sounds turning Colombian sounds into house music. There's some neo-psychedelia and neo-folk thrown into the mix for good measure.

Sandy Denny: Sandy (Deluxe Edition), Like An Old Fashioned Waltz (Deluxe Edition), Rendezvous (Deluxe Edition)

Graham Fuller

The proto version of this tribute show took place at Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2008 on the eve of the 30^th anniversary of Sandy Denny’s death. This tour coincides with the release of a new box-set and draws on Thea Gilmore’s courageous recent settings of some of Denny’s rediscovered lyrics. A career-spanning set of covers, it pours water on the embers of a stunning back catalogue as much as it reignites them.

In a members-only bowling club, down a side street in a residential part of Glasgow I'd never visited before last night, Texan fiddle-player and songwriter Amanda Shires stood wearing the most magnificent pair of cowboy boots I had ever seen.

Two things are certain with music coming from the north: there will be some wonderful surprises and some of it will sound like nothing else on earth. It’s even more enticing when the two merge. Making the peculiar accessible is a uniquely Scandinavian knack. There are more than a few examples of that – the creation of new micro-genres – in this round-up of current and new releases, but some straightforward albums are equally striking. First, however, we head for the offbeat end of the spectrum.

Welcome to theartsdesk's first radio show with Peter Culshaw and Joe Muggs, recorded with the extremely able help of Brendon Harding at Red Bull Studio London.

Some people – a very few – just have it. Never mind whether her songs appeal, or the style in which she performs them, but Sinéad O’Connor’s presence is extraordinary - as, of course, is her voice. She sings “I Am Stretched on Your Grave” a capella, dedicating it to PC David Rathband, the policeman blinded by Raoul Moat who recently committed suicide. The Queen Elizabeth Hall falls to pin-drop silence; O’Connor’s singing, which flecks wrenching forcefulness with heartbreak vulnerability, is relentless - it brooks no doubt.

This particular King Charles should watch out. Although he’s assumed the trappings of a Georgian fop, he’d be well minded to pay heed to his predecessors King Charles I - beheaded in 1649 - and King Charles II – dogged by plague and the Great Fire of London. On the evidence of the thin gruel that is LoveBlood, his debut album, our latter-day King Charles’s place in history is far from assured.

Released last month on One Fine Day Records to excellent reviews, last night saw the first of an 11-date UK tour for Gerry Diver's remarkable multimedia work, The Speech Project. Conceived over the past four years by musician, composer and producer Diver, a former member of Irish world music group Sin é and Shane McGowan's The Popes, at its heart The Speech Project features new and archival spoken word recordings of seminal Irish musicians and singers including Shane MacGowan, Christy Moore, Damien Dempsey, Joe Cooley, Danny Meehan, Martin Hayes and Margaret Barry.

The fourth album by Carolina Chocolate Drops, the old-time string and jug band with 21^st-century attitude, fizzes with their characteristic energy. They’re essentially a live band, great communicators and purveyors of a musical style that was designed to brighten the evenings of hard-working mountain people in the Piedmont region of the Appalachians. The upfront quality of Buddy Miller’s production and the contagious joy the musicians bring to their singing and playing goes a long way towards transcending the limitations of the studio.