I was venturing to North London – Tufnell Park to be precise – to watch the rugby in a pub with friends, anyway. But then my Songkick App notified me that a musician I really like, Andrew Wasylyck, was playing the Union Chapel on Saturday afternoon as part of something called Daylight Music. Andrew is from Dundee and doesn’t get down to London very often and I don’t get to Dundee much either, so my opportunities to see him play are few and far between. The Union Chapel was on my way and the timing of his performance gave me plenty of time to get to pub for the game. So I took myself off to Islington.
Daylight Music is a two hour concert concert, usually presenting three musical performers playing for around half an hour each. It starts at midday and aims to finish by 2pm. The music can ve very varied. There is a cafe at the back of the Chapel which serves savoury snacks, cakes, soft drinks and coffees and teas. All looked very nice, but I wasn’t hungry. I can vouch for the coffee which was very good. All profits from the cafe go towards a homeless charity.
There were probably a couple of hundred people watching the show. I spoke to Ben the organiser afterwards and he told me: “The number of people watching varies. A couple of weeks ago it was our three hundredth show and we had over five hundred people here. And last week we had a similar number here. I think some people are perhaps having a week off this week.”
“A couple of times we’ve gone well over seven hundred,” he continued. “But this weeks music is a bit more avant garde”.
Victoria Hume was first up. She played the piano and sang songs accompanied by a guitarist and at one point a woman playing a saw. I’m afraid I missed most of her set. Her final song was about delirium and felt brooding and impressionistic to me.
Robert Stillman followed on. He was a solo saxophonist who also played loops and backing tapes. His first piece was very abrasive and I found it difficult to listen as it imploded into chaos. The other pieces became very rhythmic and dreamy and I enjoyed closing my eyes and listening to them. The coffee tasted good and the acoustic of the church is excellent
The main course was Andrew Wasylyck. He speaks beatifully between songs, and much under-appreciated skill among the performing musicians, explaining the context of his work and also offering appreciation to the organisers and everyone helping behind the scenes.
But it was his music I had come for and I was far from disappointed. He played two or three pieces from his most recent album called The Paralian which were instrumentals. He was accompanied by a trumpeter but explained that he had been playing the songs with an eight piece band and that today was an experiment in stripping down the songs somewhat. They sounded terrific in the Union Chapel’s lovely room. I recommend Andrew’s work which falls between instrumentals that I find somehow strongly visual – the music seems to capture the subject of each piece – and a pop record Soroky which I think is exceptional and rewards repeated replay.
To conclude this afternoon’s performance, Andrew played Your Soul Is Not Enough by Art of the Memory Palace which he wrote and recorded wth the writer James Robertson. James was not available, so Andrew played a tape of the words and played the music as a live accompaniment. It sounded wonderful in the church, soaring high into the wooden ceilings of the Union Chapel and was well worth the journey on its own. I’ve embedded a video of the recording below. Its not exactly Little Mix but with headphones on, listening beside an open fire, its perfect.
It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours. I’m sure I will be back.
