One of the best gigs I went to see last year was Nina Nastasia at Cardiff's old church The Point. It was just Nina and a guitar - real hair-on-end, spine-tingling stuff. Nastasia just has that talent for completely taking you into her world, there are no blocks to her expression, it's direct and just so moving I sometimes can't believe it.
What She Doesn’t Know is a song left over from her last On Leaving (http://www.musicomh.com/albums/nina-nastasia_0906.htm) LP, and it shimmers with the same kind of cut-glass poetic poignancy as so many of the tracks on there. There's a low-key guitar sparkling beneath her like poetry from the gods, and when she sings "I couldn’t think of what to say" I just want to cry.
Concise, vivid and so unadorned, Nastasia's the singer-songwriter of my dreams. Watch out for a new album soon.