Brooke Fraser

Don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of Brooke Fraser—yet. Her second album went double platinum in just a month, but that was in her home country, New Zealand. Albertine, released there in 2006, made it to the U.S. this summer, and already she’s hit the top 10 on iTunes and had her video for “Shadowfeet” featured on Music Choice. Musically, she’s great—reminiscent of Sarah McLachlan in lyrics and tone, though with a richer, velvety vocal instrument. “Deciphering Me” is case in point: “Oh can you feel the gravity falling, calling us home / Oh did you see the stars colliding, shining just to show where we belong?” It’s on the title track, though, where you find the best reason to love this artist: her heart. “Albertine” is the name of a girl she met in Rwanda. As Fraser writes in the liner notes, “Albertine is alive today because of the selfless, sacrificial love of another. Funny thing is, so am I. And now I want to know what it’s like to love other people like that…. Feel free to join me. We might just change the world.”