Kim Edgar

The last performer of the night was Edinburgh singer and musician Kim Edgar. I first saw Kim performing with the magnificent Karine Polwart in Dundee earlier this year and slightly later on I bought her CD 'Butterflies and Broken Glass' and little by little I fell in love with her voice and her lyrics and her whole musical project, if you like. She has the gentlest voice you can imagine (but still a steely power in there somewhere) plus she is a great pianist and guitarist and a gifted writer too. On Friday she started off with two numbers that were poems of mine that she had turned into songs ('Significant other deceased' and '25 year tears') and as you can imagine this was really quite exciting for me! I had not heard the tunes before and it really was quite earthshattering to hear them in that place, surrounded by friends old and new, sung by that voice, turned into quite such beautiful entities. They are both lovely but 'Significant other deceased' (perhaps because she sang it first) nearly knocked me off my chair. It is a sad poem (simple but sad) and she turned it into something...almost celestial. I didn't cry (oddly...I cry so much and so easily!) but my goodness, I won't forget that experience for a long time. Kim also sang her own beautiful song 'Heavy Skies' and one she co-wrote with Karine P. Go and hunt down Kim's CD, honestly, you won't regret it.

Rachel Fox