At the age of 22, Rachel Sermanni has released a handful of EPs, one studio long-player and now a live album, with a certain amount of song rotation between all three formats. While that tiny bump of a worry over the extent of her repertoire is smoothed away by the sheer quality of everything she writes, we're definitely ready for the second chapter of the Carrbridge native's songbook.
Before that, however, this live album (recorded last summer in northern Canada at the Dawson City Music Festival) is timed to coincide with Sermanni's autumn tour, which kicks off at The Tollbooth in Stirling. And although there's rarely anything fussy about the production of her studio output, it's in the live environment, where all distractions are shorn away, that her skill as a songwriter really becomes apparent.
With only Jen Austin supplying subtle colour on piano and vocal harmonies, this 10-song set underlines what a phenomenal instrument Sermanni's voice has become, rising from jazzy depths to operatic heights in a scattering of notes. There's not a lot of inter-song chat, but her personality is there for all to hear in the vocal delivery, full of life, side-stepping into shadows, adding a little embellishment here and there.
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