After the revolving-door policy the BBC and, it seems, the world at large had over the past few years concerning acoustic singer-songwriters, the prospect of another seemed to endear the thought of slamming our thumbs in car doors to us. But we’ve weathered the storm of blandness, and emerged thankfully unscathed – but still wary of anyone wielding an acoustic guitar. The neo-folk resurgence has hit a minor lull of late (it’s not completely on hiatus, but the offerings are scarcer) with the big names either working on their tans or heading back into the studio.

Though reluctantly receiving a farrago of the stuff dented our souls somewhat, that doesn’t mean we can’t soften when the right person stumbles by. Ásgeir won our hearts, James Vincent McMorrow’s recent LP was ruddy fantastic, and 22 year old Scottish songstress Rachel Sermanni is repping the North with her crucial take on the genre. She’s jammed with Mumford & Sons, supported Elvis Costello, John Grant and KT Tunstall on tour, and released a well-received debut record (called Under Mountains) back in the winter of 2012; it’s not just our ears she’s caught, lassoed, reigned in and taken hostage.

She’s in from the cold now with a new EP. Everything Changes takes her away from the comfort zones of her Highlands home – it was record in NYC with veteran indie producer Alex Newport (Bloc Party) after lengthy spells abroad and on tour.

“Two Birds” is a sashimi-raw paean of yearning. “So sweet yet so bitter,” she venomously coos, with every downstrum of her guitar forcing a wince of anguish. There’s jet black jazz keys lurking in the shadows like Victorian spivs; this may folk, but it’s swaddled in bite and sass and stoic, bristly emotion. “Blackhole” echoes these darker sentiments, but in a vastly different way. Part gothic cabaret, part ’20s Francopop and part lumbering folk-rock, it’s more Romanovs than Bon Iver. It shimmers and shuffles, adorned in lacy filigree and muted, syncopated fretwork. Carnivalesque keys leap and boing as clowns with ADD do. Toy piano and baby-voiced backing vocals saunter through this, the “Pink Elephants On Parade” of folk.

There are more traditional cuts however. “Lay-Oh” is a summery, flighty ditty for canoodling in meadows or frolicking in glens; there’s a particularly superb bassline here, working in tandem with a carefree, sun-blushed piano. The final endeavour on Sermanni’s EP is the wintry title track. Still as fat-free as “Lay-Oh”, it demonstrates her talent for inducing aortic trauma: “If you left thinking that I wanted anything but you/ I wished for nothing more/but everything changes.”

This EP serves two primary functions: to reinstate Sermanni as the go-to folkster, and to showcase her breadth of audio emotions. She puts us through an emotive wringer, whipping past joy, sadness, anger and malice in the space of as many songs; as much as this is a release in and of itself, it’s also a teaser for the future – a ‘look at what I can do!’ kind of release. And it’s very impressive.