On paper, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu sounds like a preposterous pop star. On stage, he won’t say a word to his fans, instead instructing his producer to talk for him. He never gives interviews, but plays his guitar upside down and honestly believes that he is closely related to saltwater crocodiles and descended from rainbow pythons.

When his producer, Michael Hohnen, also his double bass player, chided Gurrumul (he’s already famous enough to get away with one name) for refusing to say hello at the start of the show — “That’s just rude,” he mock huffed — the singer barely managed to suppress a smile that suggested he was in on an elaborate joke.

Within seconds of Gurrumul starting to sing, however, any doubts about his authenticity evaporated. The 39-year-old Aboriginal singer possesses a crisp, clear, tenor voice as sumptuously soothing as a log fire on a freezing night.

That possibly only his producer understands what he’s singing didn’t matter a jot. Indeed, reading the bizarre translations of the lyrics on a screen behind the seated singer — the set opener Wiyathul apparently dealt with the importance of scrub fowl — served only to distract from the power of his voice.

A former member of Yothu Yindi, Gurrumul is a blind singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist whose songs are occasionally in English, but mostly delivered in the Yolngu dialect of the Gumatj clan. Already declared a superstar on the world-music scene after his self-titled debut solo album picked up umpteen awards and sold more than 100,000 copies in Australia alone, Gurrumul makes folk in its purest form. In his language there is no written word, so he sings to pass on stories of the culture of his clan.

In Britain he has achieved the rare feat of having his non-English songs played on mainstream radio, notably Bapa, an angelic ode to his father played early in the set and half-hummed. As well as Hohnen and a guitarist, Gurrumul was backed by a string quartet, although the gentle music provided only sparse accompaniment to his stunning, soulful, gospel-infused folk vocals. Highlights included a reggae version of Marwurrumburr, a track about a cat that embodied the singer’s mother, and Baru, on which the crowd was asked to make the sound of a crocodile breathing fire — a sort of “whah”, in case you were wondering.

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