Emmy the Great

Tonight’s proceedings get underway courtesy of Young Husband, the musical endeavour of Euan Hinshelwood (also second guitar in Emmy The Great’s band), backed by Ad Lambert (drums) and Joe Chilton (bass). Anticipating a folk-tinged affair, it’s therefore something of a surprise to bear witness to quite a different beast. Despite the acoustic guitar Hinshelwood brandishes, there’s an agreeably Weezer-esque crunch to the set, which is as cocksure and promising as they come, particularly in the spirited stomp of 'Alexander'.

Next up it’s the turn of Emma-Lee Moss and her “high men” who make up Emmy The Great. As a site who have long championed said act, it should come as no surprise that DiS is once more held rapt, as tonight we’re offered a smattering of new songs that will eventually make up the very-nearly-complete debut album. Chief among these is a memorable appropriation of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, poignant in the most optimistic of manners (“Hallelujah, hallelujah / And the sky was so much bluer…”); effervescent by the time it fizzles to a close.

Whether marrying sweet narratives with unexpected lyrical turns or dropping informed pop culture references, Moss and her group are wholly and constantly engaging, buoyed by a voice of cut-glass purity that dallies nimbly with resoundingly fine instrumentation. The stirring melodies and sweeping violin of closing ‘City Song’ – not to mention its devastating final lyric – encapsulate the bountiful appeal on display. Album soon, please? Okay.

Headliner Diane Cluck takes to the stage in a manner hardly immediate, fidgety and apologetic for the show’s cancellation/subsequent rescheduling and any hassle this may have caused, and expresses nervousness perhaps brought on by only now getting her head around recent arrival in the country. Long pauses permeate the set while her low-slung guitar and its off-kilter tunings cause all manner of problems, though these gradually diminish as an eager crowd lap up the odd beauty of her compositions and captivating vocal presence.

The fluidity and grace initially absent has well and truly arrived by the time she reaches an encore, where she jovially fields requests that see her run through an “idea” of a song (on the subject of diamonds) before finishing through (lyrically) “praying the headaches away”, cutting a delicate though assured figure. A fine evening all told, then: flying in the face of the zeitgeist and all the wonderfully stronger for it.