Having looked her up beforehand I already have positive impressions, but arriving just after her set gets underway there is awed silence all around and it soon becomes clear that this is something rather special. Her keening voice is used to powerful effect, and often stands almost alone with just the tiniest of colour added sparingly across the songs by soft piano and guitar. The songs are grounded enough for it to work and that silence is almost as much a key player.
"Coast" with it's elemental imagery and timeless atmosphere reminds of Wind in the Wire era Patrick Wolf, but as Laura's very audible nervousness between songs contrasts with their assured clarity and beauty, the strongest comparison is to my first encounter of Bat for Lashes first on a bill in early 2006. Similar big things could well be ahead – catching her outside afterwards she says that an album is tentatively due for April.
This leaves me in a somewhat weird position. I'm seeing for the first time a full gig by my current favourite new act by far, the one whose album in February I am hoping will live up to the long wait in a big way. Yet she isn't even the best thing tonight.
At moments it's a different story. Emmy is as engaging and funny as anyone could hope for, offhand witticisms between songs too many to recall. Some of the things she's now doing with a full band are beyond the scale of her previously intimate modern folk in a fine way – the whip crack bitterness of "First Love", memories unspooling like the chewn up Leonard Cohen tape its tale centres round, could well be the finest thing she's yet done.
"Short Country Song", the (I thought) insubstantial B-side to the current single, is suddenly deeply heartbreaking, one of a series of songs that skilfully picks out everyday minor details and laces them with an underlying sadness.
The standard bearer for that type of song, "M.I.A." is the opener and the best example of what doesn't quite sit right. Its desolation of sitting in car-crash aftermath, with only mixtape for company, is particularly undermined by the melodica and backing vocals that are now
brought in. although just about any moment when the rest of the band are singing feels imperfect.
It might just take some getting used to, after too long listening to acoustic recordings, but even on the new songs it's those that take the extremes of noisy clatter or of space that are the most
impressive.
Still, there remains oodles of promise, the violin led folk cover of "Where Is My Mind?" goes down a treat and we get a solo encore (chosen by consensus) of "Canopies and Grapes" that shows Emmy's still happy doing stream of conciousness strumming with S Club 7 and Magnetic
Fields references too.
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