You know the song: it’s the one that’s got the sort of funky acoustic guitar riff and the vocal bit that goes “woohoo” all the way through. Black Horse and the Cherry Tree. Impossible to get out of your head when you hear it. Sounds like it ought to be sung by some kind of Sheryl Crowe-alike from some southern US state. So when, at the signing/acoustic set at Fopp in Manchester today, she turned out to be a diminuitive Scottish lass with a frighteningly magnetic cheeky grin and astonishingly soulful voice, it was quite a surprise.

Her live solo performance is quite unique – using a cunning array of sampling wizardry, she builds up a backing loop of thumps, muted guitar strums, backing harmonies and the like, right there in front of you, and then proceeds to play the song over the top, building extra elements into the loop as she goes until the song builds to such a crescendo you’d swear there was a full band hiding somewhere else in the venue. Despite the on-the-spot creativeness of the whole thing (she even impersonates a trumpet for a solo part in Black Horse & The Cherry Tree), her performance is impeccable, and quite, quite brilliant.

Plus, she’s dead cute and has a to-die-for Scottish accent. Which is alright by me.

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