The rise and rise of nu-folk sisters The Staves

THE PLEASANCE is a venue well renowned for live folk music. However, you can’t help think The Three Sisters, on the Cowgate, would be a more apt location for sisterly singing sensations, nu-folk trio, The Staves.

Better known as Emily, Camilla and Jessica Stavely-Taylor, these flirtatious fillies are the latest in a long line of what some folk purists consider faux-folk, acts that include the likes of Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons.

Regardless of the semantics, though, the trio come highly recommended, having recently supported Civil Wars and Michael Kiwanuka.

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So what can you expect? Ghostly harmonies, ethereal sweetness, and fairly-tale-like lullabies, that’s what.

The girls hail from Watford. However, on closer inspection they sound like they have a bone to pick with a higher power for not being brought up cultivating crops in the Appalachian mountains instead.

Having started out entertaining the rowdy regulars in their local pub, they’re now bringing large auditoriums to a hush. Close your eyes, listen and you quickly realise this thrilling threesome have a canny knack for whisking you away to golden meadows, conjuring up further images of mountain-top-view sunsets and mystical, far-away lands.

“We started off at home, just singing along to whatever was playing in the background,” says Jessica.

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“We’re lucky enough to have parents who were in bands, so everyone would just be playing guitar at parties and singing together.

“We ended up just learning a load of songs, and started doing open-mic nights at our local boozer. Then one of our mates said we should do our own gig of covers – we did and it was fun, so we kind of carried on doing it.

“Then we started writing our own songs, replacing the covers with those, and before you know it you’re a gigging band, and it’s like, oh right, how did that happen? So you start taking it more seriously, then realising you’ve got to work your arse off.”

With a forthcoming tour supporting American indie-folk band Bon Iver approaching, as they say, catch them before they make the big-time.

The Staves, The Pleasance, Tuesday, 7.30pm, £8.50, 0131-650 4673