Neko Case, Dingwalls, London

Neko Case's instruments seem to be conspiring against her. The opening chords of her second song, "Outro with Bees", are interrupted by a great whoosh of feedback; later on, the banjo gives up the ghost and the B-string on her acoustic guitar just won't play ball.

There's another problem, too. Case tells us about a beautiful new Adam Ant-style shirt, purchased in Stockholm, that she planned to wear tonight. Sadly, she left it behind and has had to make do with a plain black top. But this flame-haired songstress – one part Patsy Cline to two parts Janis Joplin – isn't one to let a sartorial catastrophe ruin her night. With a voice like hers, who needs fancy clothes? Come to think of it, who needs instruments?

In a former life, Case sang and played drums in a Vancouver-based punk band named Maow, though that was before old-time country music exerted its gravitational pull. Now, as a solo artist, Case has combined her love of old-fashioned songwriting with more modern pop sensibilities. Despite their commonplace themes – love, broken relationships, that sort of thing – her songs are articulate, intimate and passionately executed.

Recently, Case moved from Chicago to Tucson, Arizona, land of swirling sandstorms and sunshine (and home of her sometime collaborators Howe Gelb and Calexico). With her roots now firmly in the desert, her music seems to have followed suit. The songs on her latest album, Blacklisted, one of last year's woefully overlooked gems, are as vast and atmospheric as her new surroundings. Case's set, accompanied by cello, drowsy acoustic and pedal steel guitar and a banjo, is largely made up of tracks from Blacklisted, alongside a handful of older tracks. Her voice is a wondrous instrument – powerful and clear, yet pleasingly rough around the edges. "Deep Red Bells" shimmers with urgency, while "Pretty Girls" ("Your curves so comely and sinister/ They blame it on you pretty girls") is steeped in sepulchral gloom.

Case clearly has a devoted constituency – mostly paunchy men in their late thirties and forties – and for the duration of the show they are rapt. The singer is chatty and warm in between songs, going so far as to smile benevolently at a slightly scary individual at the front who offers up an old photograph of her. Even "Furnace Room Lullaby", a ballad about burning your man in a giant underground furnace, which Case sings with devilish glee, doesn't put him off. Some guys just can't take a hint.