Julia Holter @ The Deaf Institute, Manchester, 13 November

In her recent interview with The Skinny, Julia Holter was disarmingly honest about her expressionist, observational narratives. Laudably self-deprecating, she offered: “It’s hard to detect where my actual experience of life comes in.” Don’t buy it. Her elegant reconstruction of pop archetypes might favour experimentation over candid confessional, but there’s a direct line to her creative core if you know where to look. Plus, with Holter, you come to better know the writer through the performer. Backed by a largely classically-schooled band (cello, violin, sax, drums) who watch her every move and read the advanced schematics of her songs with practised ease, she vaults the challenges laid down by her recorded work.

The LA songwriter’s contention that her work is less re-telling and more re-enactment is borne out not just by the bustling tableaux of recent album Loud City Song but by a deeply committed and generous performance. Tonight, she rarely breaks eye contact with the crowd (bar drifting off on occasion into her own private reverie).Live performance affords an opportunity to view her songbook from new and unexpected angles. Maxim’s I and City Appearing flex around the free-wheeling fancies of the musicians. Marienbad’s choral tip-toe blooms. The cliff edge stop-start during Four Gardens is teased out almost unbearably. Everything connects, everything breathes anew.

She’s funny, too. “You probably think you’ve come here to just stand there and watch,” she says by way of introduction. “Well, clearly, Manchester, you don’t know how these things work…” Silence. She squints into the spotlight. “Mmm. It’s a good job I can’t see any of you, otherwise I wouldn’t be saying any of this stuff.” Pause. “I’m so nervous!” Later she offers thanks for the warmth of the reception. “I feel like we’ve had a good conversation,” she muses and then smiles, ever-playful. “I feel like we’ve… worked on stuff.” [Gary Kaill]