Gig review: Rozi Plain - Electric Circus, Edinburgh

AS AN alumnus of Fence Records, the DIY sensibility which pervaded this ostensible headline set from Winchester’s Rozi Plain was perhaps unsurprising. Ostensible because, although it was billed as a three-band line-up, those involved in the show operated more as a single band whose members shared the lead role.

You might have been forgiven for thinking that Plain (real name Rosalind Leyden, a founder member of Bristolian Fence analogue the Cleaner Records Collective) was making it up as she went along following her first track, a brand new effort she described as “half a song”, which featured a procession of soft skipping rhymes built upon whispering, repetitive acoustic guitar lines: I will not leave / ‘til we’re agreed / we must agree. Even with the addition of three extra musicians, however, the almost overwhelming delicacy of her compositions remained.

There was something almost feline in her voice, a soft purr which suggested a French chanteuse in tone if not in accent, and a homespun Englishness which hinted at Kate Nash without the punkish petulance. In songs such as See My Boat and Cold Tap there was an undoubted warmth and tweeness to her delivery and lyrics, and in Humans – a harmonised duet with This is the Kit’s Kate Stables – a demonstration of her subtle but formidable ability as a composer.

RATING: ***