This is another she's-fab-she's-shite-she's-fab-she's-shite type threads, isn't it?

Whether she's a folk singer or not is entirely irrelevant and depends on what you think folk is (all together: definition #1 process, #2 context, #3 marketing tool). She says she's not - that's good enough for me.

What I do know is that "Just Another Diamond Day" is a beautiful if somewhat dated and - yes - somewhat twee album. And what's wrong with a bit of twee? Not everything has to be muscular or intense or authentic or whatever the de riguer quality of the month happens to be. And what does whether or not she is part of the folk scene in Edinburgh or anyplace else have to do with anything? Do people really still judge a piece of music by any criteria other than how it sounds and how it makes them feel? I couldn't give a flying fuck whether it's folk and why should anyone else? It stands or falls on the relationship between its own merits and how the listener hears it.

And its not about her voice. Does VB claim to have a technically brilliant voice? Is that really what its all about? Of course not. It's about the whole package - the songwriting, the arrangements (sublime in places), the playing, the ambience, the mood. It shouldn't just be about technical ability. Without the VIBE all the technique in the world means bugger all.

JADD, for me, evokes a warmy, fuzzy, pleasureable melancholy and a keen sense of nostalgia for a time and place I've never been to. It wraps me in a cocoon of otherworldliness and ethereality. And that really is good enough for me.

"Lookaftering" didn't float my boat, though.