A good deal of their songs are startlingly bleak, and if you paid enough attention to the lyrics of ‘Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk’ in isolation it’s enough to convince anyone life’s a pretty gritty affair with very little going for it. But the Unthank sisters, Rachel and Becky, manage to make each one of their tunes a creative standout event: part folk, part jazz, but all ingenious, consuming and moments to store away and savour. And that is enough to convince anyone this folk quartet are something out of the ordinary and even their darkest numbers something to cheer.

Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, despite having lost pianist Belinda O’Hooley - the most extrovert and showy part of the group - have stepped up their game over the last year. Whether it’s the prospect of a Mercury Music Prize (the group was recently short listed for the prize, which could give them, and the young folk scene a kick into the limelight going into 2009), or just time on stage, they achieved a pretty packed Jazz Café on Monday night and played a stunning set, which can’t have left many people in doubt as to why they were nominated for the award.

I raved about Mary Hampton on the release of her debut album My Mother’s Children and I’ll rave again. Even though I was careless enough to miss the first half of her supporting set, the remaining songs I caught were enough to convince me I should have made a helluva lot more effort to have got there earlier. Hampton’s frail, otherworldly lyrics, and rattling Dobro guitar lines were delivered with stunning clarity to a breathless crowd. And much as Rachel Unthank and her Winterset were worthy of the headline act, the performance of the evening was Hampton’s.

A fantastic evening featuring two of British folk’s most beguiling and exciting artists.