Keren Ann, now on her fifth album, is not ‘one to watch’. She is not a ‘talent for the future’. She is very much the finished article, and very much in her prime.

Therefore, it was a mild shame that there were many empty seats at the Arts Theatre. Those in on the secret saw a lady ignorant of a rather deflated atmosphere produce a performance of such depth and passion as to set bottoms lips a-quiver amongst the more sensitive among us here, of which there were many.

Comparisons with the Velvet Underground, Nico in particular, are not too far wide of the mark. Keren Ann’s leftfield arrangements, melodies that take unexpected but somehow entirely natural directions, and startlingly poetic lyrics that belie (or perhaps reflect) the fact she is French, allow her to be spoken of seriously alongside the heavyweight names of female singer-songwriters; Joni Mitchell (whose ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ she covered in the encore), Sandy Denny and maybe Cat Power or Saddle Creek’s Maria Taylor of today’s crew.

In her demeanour she is disarmingly similar to KT Tunstall, but comparable artistically speaking only if the Scottish chanteuse had read more Kafka, or maybe that’s a bit harsh. On Keren Ann.
Her way with words is a pleasure: rarely do lyrics come across so hauntingly in a live setting, especially when the music behind is so inventive.

Lines such as “No, we can’t change the world/It’s Been Done/By someone/Long ago” from ‘Where No Endings End’ (from her latest album, eponymously titled) reached out of the songs that hold them, the Leonard Cohen-influenced ‘Chelsea Burns’ being another aching example of her unusual imagery and imagination: anyone who uses the term ‘boreal wind’ (in more than one song, too) or ‘pink tourmalaine’ is worthy of our attention.

Though backed by a drummer, guitar/bass player and trumpeter throughout, the most compelling moment came when she wandered back on stage as the audience filed out to sing a French romance with all the house lights off. Enchanté, Madame.

Barnaby Smith