Grace Cummings (with full band)

Grace Cummings plays Hyde Park Book Club on Monday 9 November, with the show starting at 7:30 pm. It's part of the Brudenell Presents... series, and she'll be performing with her full band. The date comes after a run of European shows supporting Father John Misty and a sold-out headline night at The George Tavern in London.

Cummings is a Melbourne-born singer-songwriter and stage actor, and her work draws from a few different places: traditional Irish folk, 20th-century poetry, and raw, orchestral storytelling, all held together by a commanding, magnetic voice. Her fourth album, Bloodhorse!, came out on 14 August via ATO Records and was recorded in Topanga Canyon with Grammy-nominated producer Jonathan Wilson, who has worked with Father John Misty, Angel Olsen and Margo Price. The record pushes her deep, feral alto into music that shudders with synths, tense strings and woozy grooves, alongside the campfire intimacy that built her reputation.

That mix of the orchestral and the intimate is a good way to get a handle on what she does. The Irish folk influence provides the melodic grounding, while the poetry and storytelling give the songs their narrative weight. Bloodhorse! leans into the more expansive side of that, with the synths and strings filling out the sound around her voice. Hearing it with a full band should do those arrangements justice, and the Leeds date is one of the first times the new material will be out on the road after that European run.

So, if you're after a night of songwriting that doesn't shy away from being a bit dramatic, this is one to keep on the radar. Grace Cummings at Hyde Park Book Club, 27-29 Headingley Lane, Leeds, LS6 1BL, on Monday 9 November from 7:30 pm.