The Carlsberg Kilkenny Rhythm ‘n’ Roots Festival has built up an enviable reputation for featuring acts that are just about to break into the big league.

This year’s bill at Kilkenny featured a wide range of roots, Americana, alt. country and folk acts. One of the most eagerly anticipated performers was UK singer songwriter Thea Gilmore.

At only 21 the remarkably assured Oxford-born songstress has just released her third album, the highly acclaimed Rules For Jokers, which has seen her compared with Beth Orton and Tanita Tikaram.

The daughter of Irish parents (her dad’s from Dublin her mother from Wicklow), Gilmore began her musical career at 16, making tea at a local recording studio before forming her own record label, Shameless. Her first two albums, Burning Dorothy and The Lipstick Conspiracies established her as a precociously consistent talent. Last year, a six-track EP As If, was play-listed on BBC Radio 2 paving the way for the positive critical reception she’s received for Rules For Jokers.

With influences ranging from Dylan, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen to Elvis Costello and the Replacements, Gilmore has been praised for the maturity and depth of her songwriting and the ease with which she grasps complex lyrical themes.

“I grew up with Dylan,” she reveals. “I had pirate copies of albums like Bringing It All Back Home and The Times They Are A Changing which were a big influence on me. Dylan is still a big inspiration, I’ve just recorded a version of his ‘I Dreamed I Saw St Augustin’, which is coming out on an Uncut magazine CD next month.”

Unlike her first two albums which feature a harder edged band sound Rules For Jokers is more stripped down and acoustic with songs such as the sublime ‘Holding Your Hand’ featuring a minimum of backing. “It wasn’t thought out that way,” she explains. “It was purely because the songs required less blood and thunder. It makes the live shows more representative of the album although I’m a big believer that the live thing should be different to the album.”