Bic Runga with the Christchurch Symphony: Live in Concert

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

Herald rating: * * * *

Considering Runga's unstoppable local popularity, for this album to be any more of a yuletide stocking filler, its case would have to be shaped like a foot.

But this live recording in hometown Christchurch with the local symphony is also something beyond Bic's-hits-with-strings-attached or the Runga album that's okay to give your favourite great aunt.

Helping that is its run of covers - Runga and orchestra turn Bob Dylan's One More Cup of Coffee into a wide-screen 60s-styled country-pop, she finds the Gallic despair in Jacques Brel's Ne Me Quitte Pas, and takes a delicate approach to Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick's Anyone Who Had A Heart.

Elsewhere, the likes of her own Beautiful Collision and Wishing on a Star fingerclick along in lush cabaret takes.

As well as the aforementioned French wrist-slasher, And No More Shall We Part, Say After Me help to give the 11-track album a considerable melancholy streak, with a feelgood counterbalance from Bursting Through and the closing Something Good.

As in-betweener albums go, it's a classy dramatic pause.

Label: Columbia