It feels a little strange to be inside the Pleasance for a show outside of August but in the red draped theatre tonight are two talented singer-songwriters with very different approaches to composing and arranging.
Our opener Louise McGraw, aka Goodnight Louisa, leans towards heart on sleeve compositions, heavy on the proper nouns and emotional reckonings.
There’s a touch of Patti Smith to the way she presents onstage but tracks like Jennifer Aniston and Drew Barrymore – sadly not a cover of the SZA song of the same name – use more contemporary icons to reflect on big emotions.
Between songs she tells of meeting our headliner doing songwriting workshops with prisoners and there’s clearly no shortage of craft but perhaps stripping these songs back to just a Fender guitar robs them of a little heft.
Still, tracks like closer Michael suggest a keen observational eye.
By contrast our headliner’s super power is his skill with a creative arrangement. When he first broke through a decade ago, his instantly impressive debut Architect cast him as a Caledonian counterpart to American acts like Grizzly Bear and Sufjan Stevens whose instrumental mastery and ear for a lush arrangement placed them in sharp contrast to the meat-and-potatoes indie rock favoured by much of the British music scene of the era.
The first indication that something similarly intriguing is afoot is the appearance of a harp onstage and over the course of an hour, C Duncan does his best to flesh out his technicolour songs with all the appropriate flourishes, even without the bells and whistles that a studio affords.
It’s Only A Love Song is a Beatlesy paean to romantic desire, while other early tracks from his latest record have the melodic sophistication of eighties sophistipop titans like The The or The Blue Nile.
He might joke that the new material is the hardest to play but as a classically trained prodigy, there isn’t a second where the complex interwoven melodies get away from him.
Backed by Amanda on bass and Jill Fleetwood on harp, he pinwheels through a succession of gorgeous piano-led tunes like the hypnotic Just Like Clockwork before buckling on an acoustic guitar for the Nick Drake-like Flora.
The eighties synths on Heaven don’t work quite as well as the more bucolic moments of the set but luckily there’s a pleasant surprise just around the corner as the singer introduces his parents – entertainingly billed as M and J Duncan – to play violin and viola for the final handful of songs.
By the time he ends with the wonderfully simple Say and a sweet low key track from 2022’s Alluvium entitled The Wedding Song, his charm and musical warmth has enfolded everyone in the room.