Music
Olivia Chaney, Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh
Rob Adams
THREE STARS
"It's nice to play to people because I've played to empty rooms before and I'll probably play to empty rooms again," announced Olivia Chaney at one point on Sunday, with a sunnier tone than her words might convey in print. The Royal Academy of Music graduate and double nominee at the recent BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards had drawn a small but very appreciative gathering to the Voodoo Rooms' intimate studio space and it says much for rock promoters Regular Music that they're prepared to invest in someone at Chaney's level of development as well as working with their more lucrative, more established concert hall-filling associates.
Beside writing her own songs, Chaney draws her material from a wide range of sources, including Henry Purcell, Monteverdi, ill-starred Chilean folk poet Violetta Parra and Rudyard Kipling, a setting of whose Brookland Road made a good, folksong-styled opening to her set. At various times, there were hints in her voice that she might have listened to Eliza Carthy, June Tabor, Sandy Denny and Joni Mitchell, without reaching the heights of these singers at their best, but there's also a certain fearless individuality in her singing and melody writing that bodes well for the future.
Switching between acoustic and electric guitars, electronic keyboard and harmonium, she accompanied herself simply and quite starkly, incorporating different guitar tunings to good effect, and while her singing can be a bit staccato she sang the traditional ballad The False Bride well and with warmth. The audience responded enthusiastically, calling her back for two encores and the second one, Joni Mitchell's A Case of You ended the gig strongly.
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