“Once upon a time there was a princess named Baby Dee who had a gift for song. She toured the kingdom with her magic harp, singing songs so sweet and sad that the very birds in the trees stopped to listen.”

So begin the liner notes to Baby Dee Goes Down To Amsterdam, a recording of a live set from 2009 for VPRO Radio, now seeing the light of day thanks to Coventry label Tin Angel. The notes, by Mary Norris in the style of the Brothers Grimm are a perfect fit for Baby Dee’s unique combination of sombre and circus, vulnerable and powerful.

“Aren’t you nice to be clapping for me when I haven’t done anything yet”, Dee starts the record. It’s hardly accurate as over the last ten years Dee has justly achieved critical acclaim for a series of individual and moving records, which have seen her collaborate with the likes of Antony, Marc Almond, Will Oldham, Andrew WK, Current 93 and more (with an extended break in which she took up tree surgery, only to bring a tree down on a clients roof).

Dee’s ability to attract high calibre musicians to complement her playing is equally the case with the group gathered together for this set, which finds Dee’s Harp and Piano accompanied by cellist John Contreras (Current 93), Alex Neilsen on drums (Trembling Bells / Current 93 / Six Organs of Admittance), and Joe Carvell on Contrebass (or as the album notes would have it Winky, Wanky and Batchy). Their subtlety of play and lightness of touch is key in creating just the right amount of space for Dee to weave her intricate hymnals, fusing medieval tones and music hall, sometimes singing sometimes speak-whispering, and providing room for her to take flight when the music, or the mood dictates.

With a set drawing material from all of her records, the live arena is really where Dee’s talents are really allowed to shine – the quality of the playing and songwriting fusing with her life as a true performer, making each track come alive in different ways each time. The raucously boozy ‘Earlie King’ crashes and swoops with promises of “all the bacon that a boy can eat”, Dee mastering the chaos and bringing everything within her powers. Between songs Dee is a conspiratorial companion, divulging secrets and laughing before launching forwards into the next song, be it a ballad about bees or the tale of “a nasty moment”.

Live albums should be about more than a collecting of hits: they should convey the energy and heart of the performance, of the experience of witnessing the personality of the artists writ large for better or for worse. Baby Dee Goes Down To Amsterdam manages to do just this – capture Dee’s combined talents in full stream, a powerful force indeed.