Ah Holborn, home of down-at-heel Bloomsbury residents, polluted poplar trees, Senate House and the John Soane Museum; the perfect setting for Britain’s “left-field, quiet” festival. Greeted with warm smiles by the gentle door staff, who almost seem surprised you’ve turned up, and then watching the organisers and musicians mill about with the rest of us, you can see how Homefires has gained the reputation for being “the antidote to summer festivals.” All the best in alt/anti folk (or whatever you call bedroom acoustics), have played here and like Holborn itself you’ll find some hidden gems beneath the dirty trees.

It’s hard to imagine a sound Annie Rossi cannot make with her violin. With exquisite measure she is both the Brodsky Quartet and a Radiophonic engineer’s dream; scraping rhythmically with her bow whilst singing the line, #I will watch my father shovel snow.# She has one of those broad Midwest American vocals that squeak like plimsolls on a gym floor and makes you want to watch “Hoppity Goes to Town.” She has the awkwardness that only the most unassuming of singer song-writers are gifted with, speaking to her audience a mere twice. First to inform us that she is from “Chicago…(Illinois)” and then to apologetically inform us that she, “has a few more songs.” It’s as if Rossi is worried that any minute now us cross-legged, geeky-looking members of the audience are going to go from timid to tyrannical. But we would never get despotic with you Annie! Your songs transport us back to 1950s American childhoods and we weren’t even born then! Here we get to build igloos in the snow, without fear of frostbite and chase bumblebees in cornfields, without fear of being stung.  What makes Annie Rossi interesting rather than twee however, is that there actually is an underlying fear of being stung or getting frostbite. Like her seemingly mild fear of the audience and her fluctuating vocals, her violin playing and imagery are both exciting – if a little unnerving.

David Karsten Daniels looks like a friendly balding bear. Indeed I think grizzly bears would be happy to sing his songs around a campfire with a bashed up guitar. Having just arrived in London, however, the bears will have to wait while DKD adjusts to, “living in the time-zone if I were in Japan. Not ideal, but I’m happy to be here.”  Not exactly what you wanted, but not that bad; a sentiment which is indicative of Karsten Daniels’ music. His songs feel like they’re born out of long car journeys to the mountains and lonely overseas trips to interesting places. Whether listening to live or recorded versions of his songs I glaze over, which is no bad thing. His sparsely noted tunes and the quiet lyricism of songs like “Universe of No Parts,” allow me, and perhaps the rest of the – suddenly very quiet – audience, to find those slightly disappointed memories that David Karsten Daniels’ could be the soundtrack to.

“They do look like they’re wanking.”

Six talented musicians stand on stage, including a guitarist who looks like a mellowed Joshua Homme, a hippy-Lovefoxx singer and a multi-instrumentalist who resembles Billy Crystal having spent a month at Guantanamo Bay. Of course being a Norwegian Yoik group, Adjagas sound nothing like this motley crew rather Andy Kershaw’s wet dream. Terribly earnest in their plight to bring awareness to a dying culture Sara Marielle Gaup and Lawra Somby have exceptional vocal skill and dusted with guitars and wind instruments they sound like Sigur Ros but with an old language and earthiness – rather than a new language and icicles. Unfortunately their sheer delight to be sharing their ancestors’ customs with Homefires, and their habit of stroking their instruments rather than overtly playing them, leads me to ponder (throughout their entire set, no less) if I have actually stumbled into a mythical 1968 European love den. (“I don’t want to be part of your sex festival, thank you.”) This combined with brushed symbols and hypnotic swaying leaves me with the phantom smell of joss-sticks in my nostrils.

Adjagas’ message is heartfelt but my inner Cartman blurts out: “HIPPY!” when someone onstage declares “everything changes except change itself”. My awkwardness increases during their penultimate song when hippy-Lovefoxx begins an impromptu conceptual dance about girl-hood, causing me to jot down the classic critic’s line “Oh. Christ. We’re getting dance.”

“I asked if Emmy wanted me to add anything in this intro and she said ‘she’s about 5ft 6”.’ ”

Emmy the Great encapsulates the joyful idiosyncrasies of Homefires, where things are held together by string and interesting ditties are given the time and instruments to become spellbinding songs, introduced by other enthusiastic musicians. Funny, tuneful and very very talented, a lazier reviewer would say she lives up to her name. Like her anti/alt folk contemporaries (Johnny Flynn, Lightspeed Champion, Tom Hatred) she has the gift for witty lyrics that have imagery like no other. Combined with musical comic timing, lines like #I’m three and your nine, hundred and eight, and you’re squashing me.# have a mischievous melancholia that is usually reserved for Tom and Jerry scores.

Her wistful folk tunes are backed up by her equally talented companions Charlie (of Noah and the Whale) and Tom. With Tom’s violin accompaniment adding a self-assuredness that is wiser than his years and Charlie’s eclectic musical background bringing a depth to Emmy’s graceful tunes, this is musicianship that deserves sound quality. Emmy is “notoriously demanding” of the Homefires’ sound engineers, asking for her microphone to be fiddled with for a third time. Despite her claims to divahood, there’s a familiarity with the audience that has you humming along and imagining fights breaking out between numbers.

All the acts, from the average to the ‘Great, have a surprised charm on stage that makes you want to get up and hug them, but like the festival itself I wouldn’t want to cause such a scene, so instead I’ll hug them in words. Lots and lots of words!