IT has come to a pretty pass, I certainly am not the first to observe, when the commercialisation of Christmas means that more attention is paid to the content of the advertising campaigns of the big stores pitching for the Yuletide buck than to the songsmiths, TV talent contest hopefuls and charity singles tilting for the number one spot on the hit parade. And while it would be a bold seer who predicted longevity for any new artist thrust into the bear-pit of any of section of the music market at this time of year, I still guess that we have not heard the last of Aurora Aksnes.

Aurora - she trades under her first name only - is the 19-year-old Norwegian whose beguiling tones soundtrack the tear-jerking John Lewis Man in the Moon advert, much parodied on YouTube, if not very well, and much criticised by devotees of Oasis, whose Half A World Away is the song reworked for the purpose.

Aurora is not about to enter the debate about the merits or otherwise of her version. "I wanted to keep it simple and emotional, and I didn't know the song before. It was released before I was born. It is a beautiful song," she says.

The gig with the never-knowingly-undersold retail Partnership came about after someone involved with marketing at John Lewis saw her play in London two years ago, but even that was sometime after the start of her own songwriting career, which began before her age was in double figures. When her debut album All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend comes out at the start of March, it will feature one song that she penned back then, alongside others which, she says, date from the years in which she was 11, 14 and 16.

When we talk on the phone, Aurora is on a promotional visit to London but taking time out of the city. Delightfully, she has found her way to Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, the model of AA Milne's Hundred Acre Wood in the Winnie the Pooh books. "I loved them when I was a child," she confides wistfully.

Her precociousness began when she became enthralled by an electric piano in the childhood home outside Bergen where she still lives with her parents. From six years old she was playing by ear, copying music she heard by Grieg and Debussy and songs from her parents' music collection.

Those albums, it would seem, did not include the songs of Noel Gallagher. "Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are more up my alley," she says, "I think it must be because that is what I heard when I was very young.

"I would replay the classical songs in my own way, and I have never learned to read the notes. I'm not patient enough."

Her musical fluency is matched by her ease in the international language of pop, and she says that the two have gone hand in hand from her first efforts. She was learning English at the same time as she was teaching herself music, so her lyrics never had a Norwegian incarnation.

"I have always written in English and it makes the songs easy to perform without getting too involved. It creates a bit of distance between me and the song," she says.

For all the classic influence she acknowledges, the music Aurora has recorded for her debut set shows a keen appreciation of contemporary electronica as well. Her rhythm section, Magnus Skylstad and Odd Martin Skalnes, take care of production duties, with the woman herself on some drums as well as piano on the album. She has been very hands-on in its creation and most of the songs are her work alone.

"I kept fixing the album and then changing my mind. I was never happy with it and replaced five of the songs. But it is too late to change it now!"

So far small gigs in London's hip Hoxton and a few summer festival appearances have been all that the UK has seen of Aurora live, and she has dates in Manchester and London at the start of February, but a proper tour will follow the release of the album, with Scotland very much on the itinerary.

"It seems like a mystical place," she says, "and visiting Edinburgh would be very nice."

*Aurora's All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend is released on March 11 on Decca/Petroleum/Glassnote