IT was "lovely to be back in The Pock", said singer-songwriter and poet Kathryn Williams, such is her familiarity with Pocklington Arts Centre.

She was returning to Yorkshire with a different configuration from her Selby Town Hall show last October, Ben Trigg's cello and piano having made way for the double bass of Lamb band member John Thorne. David Page was still sitting to Kathryn's left on guitar, looking like he had just stepped out of the early Sixties' Greenwich Village.

In between these handsome, settled bookends, Kathryn was adjusting her microphone stands, joking that her OCD was playing up. Later she would tamper with her loop effects footpad, accidentally bringing the gig to a temporary halt, but her mellifluous songs are marked by certainty, stillness and poise.

More than ever, this is the case on Crown Electric, her tenth album in 15 years, whose songwriting craft is typified by Underground, where her phobia of London's Tube stations is encapsulated in the image of "escalator waterfalls".

By comparison with that panic attack, lead single Heart Shaped Stone brought forth the golden sound of summer, but then came the sudden jolt of Kathryn's revelation that her mother had come through a big operation only the night before. Flicker is her favourite Kathryn song, and this old Williams favourite shone anew.

Better still, loop technology has become integral to Kathyrn's performances, the multi-tracking rising and crashing like surfer waves in Count, Little Black Numbers and the set-closing Grey Goes.

The encore extra treats highlighted Kathryn's diverse skills: a solo preview of When Nothing Meant Less, from her upcoming album of songs inspired by Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and a slow, blue cover of Dancing In The Dark, sung as Springsteen surely originally intended it.