Emmy The Great - Live

Emmy The Great - Live
ULU, London

A peculiar prospect, is Emmy The Great. While rejecting any labels that come her way, she attracts them by the bucket load: new folk starlet, next big thing, anti-anti-folk singer. She seems to have been around for so long that it's about time she settled down into a pigeon-hole and was done with it. But no, tonight's gig is a mish-mash of directions and inflections, some thrilling, some wayward and almost all entertaining.

First off, she can sing – even better than the sometimes passive, worryingly calm tones she reveals on record. Her vocals soar, lifting dark songs from the doldrums and dragging heart into brighter moments. But it was her wry, crafty lyrics that first hooked the attention and on these her show hinges.

In the main, the playful delivery of Bad Things Coming, We Are Safe and its fellow up-tempo jigs is countered pleasantly by thoughtfully youthful ballads, such as Everything Reminds Me Of You, which break up the set. It never settles, gathering a momentum and rhythm that adds meaning to City Song and a heady hurtle to Dylan. She's genuinely funny, smart couplets regularly raising smiles.

Still, when she misses it is no close cut thing – the classically crass lines "I thought romance was pretty / Then you went and spoiled it / Every time that I think of you / I have to go to the toilet" still stick out of The Hypnotist's Son like the gawky kid in a school picture. First Love's Leonard Cohen inspired rhymes are another blip that provoke as much cringing as cheering.
But these moments of almost-mocking dreadfulness are sweetly countered by the generally distinguished level of musicianship on display from both Emmy and her band, keeping the platform level from which dips and raises in mood and rhythm can be launched.

On the Museum Island is one occasion when the many facets of the performance mix faultlessly. The wispy, yearning lyricism twists around a dainty, but prevailing, melody and Emmy's voice rises above it all with clarity, capturing the essence of the song. MIA is another highlight, again the death-tinted sadness of the tune being brought to life by its delivery.

There are more hits and misses before the gig is through, a corny Carpenters cover and a classy War among them. But the prevailing feeling is that there is real flair here, as well as a smattering of good intentions and effort to paper over any misjudgements. This tentative, driven, unassuming talent could well have taken another step towards the big time tonight – whether she wants to get there or not is another issue.