Live: Empty Threats & "awesome" sex. Kathleen Edwards, Rough Trade East.

When Kathleen Edwards recently rolled into West London, clinging onto the coattails of bud and producer of forthcoming LP Voyageur (expected January) Justin Vernon, she was barely audible to many atop the thrum of the well-oiled machine that is the current Bon Iver spectacle, or indeed the anticipation for it to be jolted into action. Tonight's gathering, penned in amongst CDs of the 'Post-Industrial' variety, treats Edwards with the undivided attention she merited yet never received last month, and in turn we're treated to a sublime 8-song set. That there's no release imminent allows Edwards to pick and mix from her now-extensive back catalogue like a child beheading quivering daisies in virescent fields speckled with white.

Playing before three open acoustic cases, the show assimilates the ambience of a busk relocated due to the dire November weather beyond the glass gates of Rough Trade East, and it's all the better for it: songs are stripped of rhythmic rumble, "electrics and gadgets", and are reconfigured wondrously haphazardly as the chimes of a twelve string straddle Kathleen's low-end chords and twanging solos more piercing than anything ever offered up by The Pierces. Given such a setup Edwards feels compelled to promptly dispel any parallel with "the Eagles, summertime by the pool", the gorgeously oaky opener Wapusk sounding germanely autumnal. Bewildering as it may be, the concoction of tri-guitar composition in this angular, quite industrial space resonates with the booming clarity of a sing-song in an endless cavern and given the minimal amplification this evening employed, feedback is all but exiled. Similarly Edwards' beguilingly bruised voice never rebounds off exposed piping and racks and stacks of records awkwardly. Although this setting may feel ideal at this precise moment in time, that's not to say Edwards belongs in such poky spaces: while "the hottest days of the summer" may have faded from memory, falling from consciousness like auburn foliage, Empty Threat remains astounding; Asking For Flowers still splinters the heart like an organ-wrenching stake thrust into the perpetually pasty Edward Cullen; and Six O'Clock News delivers Canadian shivers to the foot of the spine. Lifted from her peppy 2003 debut Failer, she stuns herself into a rare moment of silence that it's now spent nigh on a decade in existence and while she may not look a day older than she did back then, she indubitably oughtn't spend any more time hidden beneath the leaves. For here to kick beneath the various tones of umber, ocher, and burnt sienna are the subtly risqué Sidecar ("a song about having sex with someone awesome") and the flip side to Wapusk, the Voyageur highlight, and unquestionably that of tonight too, Change The Sheets. Uproot any preconceptions of the Canadian singer-songwriter for in Kathleen they've one to rival Leslie.