If 2007 is the year of the grand statement (sweeping orchestras and military choirs adorning albums by Arcade Fire, Bjˆrk and Bright Eyes) then LA singer Simone White should be crowned queen of understatement.

The hushed songs that make up her forthcoming UK debut album, I Am The Man, fill a room like plumes of smoke, delicately coiling their way into your brain. On record, that's partly thanks to producer Mark Nevers, who has previously worked with such lo-fi luminaries as Lambchop.

But White played solo last night, swapping Nevers's Nashville home for a dark basement bar - and still the magical softness of her songs twinkled through the fug.

Though her entrance was as unassuming as it's possible to get without actually avoiding going on stage, White was captivating from the moment she opened her mouth. Cutting a wide-eyed and slight figure, her voice has a rare purity, and she uses it like a wind instrument, the notes she sings seeming to catch a breeze as they rise and fall.

Of course, we've heard that breathy tone before - on old Billie Holiday 78s, and such modern day torch-singers as Norah Jones - but White allies it to melodies so simple they could be nursery rhymes. A gently swooning Mary Jane recalled Nick Drake; and the carefree plucks of The American War were the perfect foil to White's elegantly antiestablishment lyrics.

While White might not use an orchestra, she's a master of subtlety; when she sang, her voice seemed to float above the noisy din coming from the bar upstairs - proving that sometimes a whisper really is more powerful than a shout.