The rush to declare 2008 the year of the smoky soul diva has left Laura Marling a little overlooked. Which suits the Reading-born folkie just fine. Her TV debut on Later last autumn - booked on the strength of one low-key EP - revealed a teenager with a voice to stop traffic, but so shy that she could barely confront the camera.
The months of media attention since - or maybe media training - have made a discernible difference. It was a bolder, more confident Marling who stepped up to start her Soho Revue Bar show solo. “It’s nice to be back here, er, actually playing,” she announced. The half of the audience looking perplexed were then told about her attempt to headline the same venue in October, when she was thrown out after it was discovered that she was just 17 - she held an impromptu concert in the street instead.
That she had returned on her 18th birthday - along with a TV camera crew - gave the show a real sense of occasion and fans the chance to sing Happy Birthday to her. The rest of the time, they were spookily silent. During the spectral opener Shine, on which Marling recalled Joni Mitchell and accompanied herself with only an occasional strum of acoustic guitar, the sole background sound was clinking glasses at the bar. Even when she brought on a three-piece band - a percussionist, bassist and fiddle player - no one dared talk. Marling’s magical voice - pure, clear, both innocent and steeped in soul - was utterly bewitching.
Live, her songs sounded more robust than they do on her sometimes twee debut album, Alas, I Cannot Swim, released this week. Cross Your Fingers had a loud, rousing chorus and phrasing borrowed from Kirsty MacColl; the current single, Ghosts, mixed Celtic folk with American country-pop; and the neatly-titled Night Terror was an eerie, haunting number surely destined for several film soundtracks.
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With her bright blonde hair in a ponytail and dressed in casual, baggy clothes, Marling had no doubt resisted requests to play up her looks - she has the fresh face of a young model and long, coltish legs.
Instead, she disarmed with a childlike charm. When the audience demanded an encore after a set that had lasted little more than half an hour, Marling admitted she hadn’t rehearsed one, then asked her mum to stop shouting suggestions.
On tour from March 4. Details from www.lauramarling.com