like sparks // like sparks // like sparks;

I think I’m built to appreciate music that bit more when it’s live, as opposed to on record. I’m sure I have an Astrid Williamson album, somewhere, but I don’t think I was ever really that moved. So when I heard that she would be supporting Kathryn Williams at King Tut’s I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Certainly not this. Put it down to the long blonde hair, the rolling Highlands in her voice or the way the night sky seems to sparkle from her blouse, but I think she could be an angel. She actually mentions that her latest album, 2009′s Here Come the Vikings, is rockier than the songs we are about to hear her performed stripped down on intimate piano or acoustic guitar. Some of them are simple love songs, like lullabies and gingerbread: the stars are beautiful, and you could be my superman. But then there is “Eve”, from the new album: whispery, wicked, sulty; the soles of her shoes like the skin of snakes. At the end of her short set, on audience request, she picks up her guitar and rocks out as much as she can on “This Is How It’s Done”.

“This is a song by The Velvet Underground,” says Kathryn Williams, introducing one of her favourite covers. “I may not be transgender, but I can relate.”

Have you ever seen an eight-month pregnant woman balance a guitar on her bump and go for it? It’s an impressive sight to behold.

The first time I saw Williams live, as part of Celtic Connections back in 2006 or something with just her long-term collaborator Neil MacColl by her side, I was blown away by her fragility and Northern charm. This time she’s brought a full band on the road, the same team who put together and played on new album The Quickening, and they just about fill the stage with an array of impressive-looking instruments including squeezebox, vibes and hurdy-gurdy. “Surrounding myself with talented people in an attempt to look better,” she says in the cutesy, whispery voice with a touch of the self-deprecation that is part of her charm. Hearing “Wanting and Waiting” from the new album, I realise there is more than a little about her that reminds me of the Jane Horrocks character in Little Voice. “Cream of the Crop” is, in that sense, a “sultry lounge singer” moment – lyrics that raise a smile and an incredible vocal performance while vibraphone acrobatics behind her do much to create a big-band type sound.

But again, this is a vocalist who is a much more entrancing proposition live. There are more covers, unsurprising given Williams’ repertoire with previous cover albums (Big Star’s “Thirteen” features, along with “Beautiful Cosmos” by Ivor Cutler); and older songs too, like the delicate “Sustain Pedal” which creates a three-minute window of stillness and tranquility for an encore in the middle of the city. But it is on the new songs that this band comes to life, right from the get-go of “50 White Lines”. The album opener sounds incredible in this sitting, MacColl’s monotone counting sounding like a litany of painted road markings zipping past the windshield on a night drive through Birmingham.

BUY: The Quickening at Amazon.co.uk
DOWNLOAD: Kathryn Williams – 50 White Lines