It's her biggest headline show, but singer-songwriter Paul is quick to scupper any idea of glamour. "I bought this dress for £2 in Deptford market," she says, peering at the red cloth skimming her hips and falling just short of her ankles. "When I got it, it was a bit bigger. For tonight, I had to sew it."

It's this honesty, teamed with an angelic voice and nerve-twitching humour, that sums up why Paul is one of the best-kept secrets in rock. She's very much a girl, one who puts a portrait of herself, topless, on the cover of her album, as she has on latest release Little Miss Weird. The kind of girl who's quick to point out her faults. "We've had a frantic rehearsal, a big drama," she says, her northern accent suddenly so thick it could win her a role in a Victoria Wood sitcom. "I'm gambling you won't know any of the songs we do anyway."

Paul delivers her challenge in a tone somewhere between resigned shrug and delicious revolt. Despite critical praise for 2003's Electro Magnetic Blues, she shuns the spotlight, guarding her pithy, poetic gothic cabaret like a lioness protects her young. She keeps an equally maternal eye on the members of her four-strong band. There's a fragile air about the collective, which features mandolin and double bass, as they assemble sparse, translucent melodies around Paul's contrary vocals. World-weary and paranoid for Too Drunk, she's defiant and desperate in Human Bun, her eerie sweetness swapped for PJ Harvey's trademark shrill mania and ball-busting attitude.

Her guitar playing is peerless, soulful and jazzy, yet so filthy it would disgust the average cock rock hero. Spidery chords run up and down Don't You Know Yet Who I Am? like chills down a terrified spine. Losing herself in a snatch of sublime noodling, Paul's head falls, her eyes closed, her spirit as indefinable and untouchable as the songs she sings.