MacGillivray

Colchester Arts Centre

Tuesday, March 7

MacGillivray, the stage persona and Highland clan name of Scottish writer, performance artist and musician Kirsten Norrie, cuts a striking figure as she glides on to the Colchester Arts Centre stage.

With flowing black robes and strawberry blond hair that falls to her waist she looks like a Thomas Malory heroine, piercing the Tuesday night crowd with a baleful glare and introducing her first song as the tale of a murdered mermaid. She then proceeds to scratch at her electric autoharp, producing a series of faintly aquatic pulses and clicks like something unspeakable happening to Flipper and then begins an anguished wail herself. The song seems less a tale of the murder and more field recordings of the event itself. It’s fair to say she has our attention.

For the next hour, the Scottish Awards for New Music nominee (the ceremony is tonight so good luck to her) shapeshifts through a series of songs, personas and instruments in a never less than fascinating show.

Unsurprising in a woman who reveals she once saw a medium to commune with the ghost of Arthur Conan Doyle, MacGillivray seems almost possessed by her songs. Her voice and mannerisms change and her voice seem sometimes to twitch involuntarily through her as if she is a conduit to some spirit. Still there’s a hint of a smile at the edges of her mouth when songs stop, suggesting she’s rather enjoying the effect she’s having on the crowd. There’s humour here, but it is molasses black.

Her tales of myth and legend and use of instruments such as harmonium and dulcitone sees her flirt with folk, but there’s a rock aesthetic here too as she swipes power chords out of her autoharp and rams it up against the speakers for a feedback-fuelled coda to one song. It’s no surprise she has added to the sonic soundscapes of artists at the more avant garde end of rock such as The Fall and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore.

There is a more conventional side to her too. A sequence of songs on the grand piano seem to be channelling Tori Amos more than ancient spirits, but there is still a wildness and space to the ballads as she sings of her heart beating to the thrill of “chasing deer” on My Heart Is In The Highlands.

Joined by a guitarist and tabla player, MacGillivray pumps away on harmonium for a mesmeric final track. The soporific effect of its swirling refrain completes the circadian rhythm of the whole gig from screamed wake-up call to gentle sleep.

It was wonderful to share a day in her company.