Solo singer-songwriter with cutesy name referencing GCSE set text. I smell twee cooking. But Scout is unfathomable, unique and paradoxical. An awkward, shy child-woman in old lady’s clothing. She hides behind her hair but is brazenly exposed by brittle melodies and poignant words. And for all her quiet and subtle charms, she’s prone to acts of thrilling sonic violence, stamping upon the world’s filthiest fuzzbox to detonate grunge-fed Neolithic blues.

She first treads softly with a new song, an incongruous mishmash of pleading helplessness and absurd fantasy, whose lyrics draw affectionate giggles: “Dinosaur egg, when will you hatch?/ ’Cause I got a million people coming on Friday/ And they want to see a dinosaur, not an egg.” Robot slaves and tortured spirits are asked to meet increasingly desperate and disturbing demands. Her fragile voice, forced through clenched teeth, is naked, vulnerable, able to freeze your organs solid with a whisper.

On ‘Wolfie’, as disorienting crescendos foist agonising regret upon seemingly mundane and inconsequential phrases, I want to hug her, tell her it’ll be OK. But there’s no need. She makes her own consolations. She drops the guitar to maltreat a tiny drum kit, mischievously chanting ”We’re all gonna die”, taking visible delight both in messing up a fill and in disseminating mortal dread. And the abrasive cacophony and string-bending intestinal riffs of ‘Newburyport’ deafeningly declaim that she can look after herself, thanks very much.

The hesitant progressions of ‘Hot to Death’, loaded with isolation and social failings, suck the air out of the room with every slightly-too-long pause. Then her occasional drummer strikes a primitive, rolling tattoo, the oversized superfuzz rages, and the entirety of her (and our) frustrations are channelled into one ragged ‘Ah, fuck it’. It’s the essence of Scout and her contradictions, sound and word acting as one to encapsulate her perfectly: “A lonely girl… rocking in her own world.”