This venue has recently hosted a succession of newish female songwriters - Polly Paulusma, Jolie Holland - who are doing a good job of making Dido seem even more tepid than she already does. Feist, a breathy Canadian, brings a bit of cocktail-lounge glamour to the party, but she also has a hardiness that will work in her favour. Maybe "hardy" is the wrong word, though, for someone who once rapped under the name Bitch Lap-Lap, and shares a flat with the terrifying rapper Peaches.

"Foolhardy" might be more appropriate. Leslie Feist, as she's never known, was a compelling swirl of strength and fragility here. Despite her oversized guitar and nose-brushing fringe, she showed no fear at having to take the stage alone save for some crackly backing tapes. It must have been daunting to bring her dreamy repertoire to life in front of a curious house, most of whom hadn't heard her new album, Let It Die. Yet she pulled it off with the confidence of a Bitch Lap-Lap, never faltering even when the tape loops did.

Neatly putting a heckler in his place - "This is for the person shouting unintelligibly at the back" - Feist made it clear who was boss. She glided serenely through most of Let It Die (though not, sadly, its chilled cover of the Bee Gees' Love You Inside Out), her hands rising of their own accord to conduct an invisible orchestra. Young Girl evoked Polly Harvey in its repressed turbulence, and the tremulous Gatekeeper recalled Joni Mitchell.

None the less, she was always her own woman, unruffled yet emotive. Her eerie nod to alt-country, My Violin, was a song in search of a David Lynch soundtrack, which pretty well went for the rest of the set, too. It was easy to get lost in music, and Feist's otherworldly aura lingered well after she had left the stage.

· At the 100 Club, London W1, tomorrow. Box office: 020-7636 0933.