In the two decades-plus she has spent twisting the sounds and images in her head into unforgettable, brilliantly off-kilter songs, Kristin Hersh has enjoyed a number of guises.

As leader of Boston's The Throwing Muses, she coined a particularly engrossing flavour of alternative rock, as adventurous with her lyrics as her endearingly odd chord-changes.

Solo, she's duetted with Michael Stipe and covered the Appalachian mountain songs she grew up with. With her latest group, 50 Foot Wave, this 40-year-old mother of four cranked up amp-smokin' punk-rock. So which Kristin would be singing for us at this secret and most intimate show? Flanked by her 50 Foot Wave rhythm section and husband and wife string duo The McCarricks, Hersh soaked up the audience's reverential hush. "Lordy, it's quiet in here," she chuckled. "Good job too, as we're playing 'sensitive' songs."

But while last night's set, drawn mostly from her forthcoming Learn To Sing Like A Star album, eschewed the roaring guitar of 50 Foot Wave, she shed none of her intensity. Her turbulent, ensnaring songs evoked the taut, electric ambience of Nirvana's MTV Unplugged set, her voice - a cocktail of broken glass rasp and warm, golden honey - searing and hypnotic.

The new songs were instantly familiar, hooking us on their barbed melodies. For an artist ever stretching herself beyond her limits, Hersh is dizzyingly consistent, seemingly forever in creative bloom.