Steven Milne’s Dirty Hearts Club is well known for pulling in some of the best new talent both locally and from around the country, and Rachel Sermanni from Carrbridge maintained that fine tradition on Thursday night.

Still just a teenager, she played at the Homecoming Scotland Burns Supper last year, and followed a tour with Stornoway earlier in 2010 with a number of festival appearances. She is booked to play next year’s Celtic Connections festival.

It was on the Stornoway tour that I first saw Rachel, and was instantly taken by the contrast between her strong delivery of her songs and the slightly nervous chat in between.

In the intervening months, she has clearly become more comfortable with that aspect of her shows, and through the night we learn that she’s a bit of a dreamer and, with a little assistance from the crowd, that being asleep is “the only time you really know yourself”.

But that’s a wee bit deep for the back of eleven on a Thursday night, and Snafu was happy just to allow Rachel to captivate us all with her soaring voice.

A lolloping rendition of Pirate Song sets the tone but I’m most impressed with The Burger Van Song, a frustrated riposte at a difficult customer Rachel experienced while spending a week working in a Burger Van.

What connects these songs is that they’re the ones that seem a bit more experimental and allow Rachel to stretch her voice a little more.That feeling of experimentation is also evident in The Circus Song, which seems to reference the likes of KT Tunstall.

Throughout her set there’s a sense Rachel is genuinely appreciative, not just of the small but attentive crowd who have turned out, but also of the talent she has. She tackles this in Ever Since The Chocolate, a song written at a time when she had lost her voice and was unable to sing.

A 40-ish minute set comes to an end with a touching rendition of Song To A Fox, written after seeing one of said animals for the very first time last year.

Rachel performed Bones for BalconyTV back in May:

She’s on Myspace at: http://www.myspace.com/RachelSermanni