With her hand written titles and sophisticated stick figure illustrations, gamine's love of flat shoes and pinafores, and untidy mop of hair, Scout Niblett can come over as very precious. As precious as her stage name, in fact.
Kiss, however, from her second album This Fool Can Die Now, is a tremblingly vulnerable duet with scourge of the Scottish low-fi scene, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, aka Will Oldham. Steve Albini's bare bones production showcases Niblett's voice and particularly her decisive delivery (somewhere between Bjork and Kate Bush).
Starting with just sharp, plain guitar strumming and keening voice, a very clattery drum comes in for Oldham's second verse. As their two voices entwine Niblett slowly begins to distort her vocal until it achieves an almost painful wail, spiking above his soft, country-tinged delivery. All in all it's quite a mesmerising performance from both.
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