Rachel Sermanni's sparkling gig

NEITHER a guitar lost in flight nor a big sloppy jumper could stop RACHEL SERMANNI’s star quality shining through at Saturday’s Ironworks gig.

For someone who had been through a full-on day, flying to London to perform a live session on Radio 2’s Dermot O’Leary show, then beating the snow to fly back, parting company with her guitar somewhere between, Rachel was her usual jokey, naturally charming self.

With a guitar borrowed from support Graham Brown – Rachel’s former school maths class colleague too – the Carrbridge singer songwriter never hinted that the loss of her own instrument had fazed her.

And with the four five-star songs from her newly-launched EP at the core of the 12-song set, the music got a great reception from the hushed crowd.

With the relaxed atmosphere you get when the venue is laid out cabaret-style with tables and candles, the pristine sound meant the subtle arrangements and variety you can get with three singing fiddlers and a keyboard-player, were given added spotlight. Though as Rachel laughed at the start of the set, she could angle her own spotlight into the crowd because of the way the stage lights bounced off her guitar.

Listening to the songs that manage to seduce you within a few bars – important for the 50-second song Little Prayer – it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what makes the songs so recognisably Rachel Sermanni, but so different from each other.

Common to all of them is that the melody never takes an obvious route and she seems to enjoy testing her voice by swooping into the lower end of her range as in Breathe Easy only to take you all the way to the top. She’s back up there in The Fog, a song that also offers you an almost instant singalong hook. And in Black Current, repeating the same words at the start of each dream described lulls you on into the increasing sense of fear the lyrics conjure.

Strange as are some of the secret worlds Rachel introduces, deceptively straightforward lyrics lead you in quickly, as in Pirate Song which starts: "I travelled down the drainpipe, you’ll find a note by the bath."

After Black Current – one of the most dramatic songs from the EP and the set – Rachel started wriggling inside the baggy knit.

"I shall take off my jumper. I’m aware my mother will be in the crowd somewhere – ‘Take it off, take it off!’," mimicked Rachel in the urgent tone of someone who wants their daughter to look their best.

The sparkling dress beneath – borrowed, she told us, from her keyboard-player Jen Austin – did add glamour.

But to adapt the words from Sleep, the dress might have the stars, but Rachel’s got her own solar system. MC