With such a continuous stream of bang-sporting, vintage-dress donning, quirky left-field female singer-songwriters emerging these days, it’s always tempting to describe relative newcomers to the field via some kind of equation made up of other artists. If you were to do so with Russian Red – the name of Lourdes Hernandez’s musical persona – you’d probably have to mention Joanna Newsom, such are her unmistakeable, potentially intentional(?) similarities to the harpist/songwriter’s child-like vocals. You’d possibly allude to Lenka too, for their shared proclivity for the gorgeous-yet-understated indie girl look. And, then you’d probably have to throw Laura Marling in there somewhere as well, for the atmospheric qualities in her tunes. But even then, you wouldn’t quite be getting the whole picture.

There is something a little different about this Spanish singer-songwriter. Her tunes veer off in a multitude of directions – from classic girl-with-a-guitar type acoustic folk to down-tempo electronic atmospheres to throw-back upbeat Camera Obscura-style indie pop – and while she probably would never have made it in McCarthyist America, her sound is starting to catch on in East Asia.

With a stage name apparently derived from her fave shade of lippy, Hernandez has started to find a niche in our region, culminating in a successful tour earlier this year to the Mainland, Korea and Taiwan, where her latest album, Fuerteventura, flew high in the charts and led to her selling out two gigs. And while she may not be the biggest name in Hong Kong yet, you do get the feeling that, given her recent promising rise, we may well be comparing the next vintage-dress donning, quirky left-field female singer-songwriters to this Red Russian.

Russian Red plays KITEC on Tuesday November 1. Tickets: 3128 8288; hkticketing.com

Mark Tjhung