Emma Pollock, Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, gig review: Her infectious ability as a songwriter shines through

Pollock brought us a mix of teenage attitude , pure power pop and acoustic tenderness

Emma Pollock

“For the first time in my twenty year career I have two electric guitars,” smiles Emma Pollock while her audience patiently waits for her to tune. This modest indulgence feels emblematic of Pollock’s newfound heights in her own solo career. For more than a decade a member of Mercury-nominated Glaswegian indie group the Delgados (“I miss them,” she admits at one point) and still a director of the group’s cult label Chemikal Underground, her recent third album In Search of Harperfield is her best yet, and is earning the attention it deserves.

This small room is packed for her four-piece electric band, and there’s something of a genteel air to proceedings; maybe the typically reserved Edinburgh crowd, or perhaps in deference to the richly personal nature of her songs. Pollock is a funny woman, but when she plays it straight and tells us that the gently surging ‘Cannot Keep a Secret’ (her softly sung ‘woohoo’s are spine-tingling) and other tracks from the album are about her efforts to understand her parents as people following her mother’s death a year ago, there is silence. There’s teenage attitude to ‘Don’t Make Me Wait’, pure power pop on ‘Parks and Recreation’ and acoustic tenderness in the solo ‘Intermission’ and ‘Dark Skies’, and through it all her maturity and infectious ability as a songwriter shines through.