HER circumstances have changed since Kathryn Willliams first played Pocklington Arts Centre last June.

She has parted company with EastWest, reclaiming independent status for her new firth album, Over Fly Over. Last night, the DIY flavour was enhanced by her merchandise desk selling her own art works (the Liverpool-born singer/songwriter studied art in Newcastle) and T-shirts customised by a designer friend.

Her jazz-smoked folk music has restored its independence too after last year's detour into cover versions, Relations. What has not changed is the homespun nature of her concerts, in which she is a natural force, off the cuff and spiky of humour.

Last night, the three-piece framework had a change of personnel, the sweet sorrow of Laura Reid's cello making way for Jonny Bridgwood's spookier, darker-toned double bass, cushioned by David Scott's gentle guitar.

Kathryn was the chameleon between what she amusingly called her "man sandwich", switching between finger-picked and bowed guitar, changing to keyboard for Tradition, tapping away at a foot cymbal for Candy Says, and playing like a scientist with her voice echo box for Little Black Numbers (after fluffing a verse mid-song amid much laughter).

While she asked for the lighting to be turned ever lower (now we know why she called an album Old Low Light), her intimate songs bathed in the warm glow, from her new paean to poet Stevie Smith, Stevie, to the sole encore, a climactic rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

Updated: 11:24 Wednesday, June 01, 2005