Arriving on stage with a guitar that appears (endearingly) to be half a size too big for her and looking alarmingly like the character Door from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, it's difficult not to like Jesca Hoop before she has even started singing. Her bandmates have an excitability to their actions (justified, as they are a new addition to her live set) that could mislead you into thinking that you're about to hear a young group in the early stages of honing their act.

This was a guilty presumption on my part, and it was blown away within seconds of the opening song. What you instead get is a well crafted and professional set with rich lyrics and strong individual performances from Jesca and her group. In fact, the only contention possible is in trying to pin down her musical style. You may hear the influence of Kate Bush, the klezmer tempo of Gogol Bordello or something else entirely, but you'll be right to do so regardless. Her music is like a weathervane that points to your own musical tastes while spinning in as many directions as possible.

Jesca Hoop has garnered strong praise from a variety of sources. Tom Waits says "Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night" and the Los Angeles Times presented her as "new and notable in 2007". More recently in the UK Jesca has supported Elbow on tour with Guy Garvey providing backing vocals for 'Murder of Birds' on her latest album Hunting My Dress.

Currently finishing her latest UK tour, Jesca has taken the time to answer some questions for us:

Alltern8: Hunting My Dress is your second album, have there been any radical changes or progress from the first?

Jesca Hoop: I wouldn't say that there are drastic changes... I would say an evolution is apparent. I learned a lot from making Kismet and I applied that knowledge to Hunting My Dress. At this point I am bound to forget everything I ever learned and start anew.