Some music venues are a conduit for creativity and attract inventive artists like iron files to a magnet. The Islington Assembly is one such venue and is a beautiful listed building made from bricks that have absorbed a little of every band who has ever performed here. As such it makes the perfect frame for tonight’s artists who represent the very best of modern music and will add a little of their own magic to The Assembly and will undoubtedly inspire the next generation.

A former student of Camden Music Centre and a 2023 Roundhouse Rising Artist, Gigi Williams has spent a lifetime on the local music scene and has become imbibed with the sights and sounds of North London. It’s a cosmopolitan environment with different sounds emanating from every street corner and Gigi’s songs are indicative of this. They’re not overtly eclectic, rather they have an even flow with various influences consumed with the whole, whilst the autobiographical nature of these songs means that they could only have come from the pen of Gigi. Furnished with a crystalline sound, the ethereal keys, trombone and skeletal guitar are designed to reach into the listener’s heart and give their strings a good tug. It means that Gigi (and many in the crowd) are close to tears (in the nicest way) and evidences music at its most powerful. A looser and lither closer provides some light relief after the heavy emotion and ensures that Gigi Williams departs on a high.

There’s something refreshingly understated about the artist known as NoSo. Arriving attired all in black and a distinct lack of fancy productions; you won’t find any pyro and explosions here (or even dry ice), rather there’s a strong focus on the music (which is exactly as it should be) and NoSo immediately throws a spell over the crowd with opening track ‘A Believable Boy’. With notes appearing from NoSo’s guitar hanging in the air and shining and shimmering like stars in the sky, NoSo’s sound is very evocative and places strong images in the mind’s eye, and that precisely why NoSo can dispense with all the smoke and mirrors that usually accompanies a concert. Instead, a kind of mass hypnosis occurs with the crowd locked into a singular groove via the vivid soundscapes the songs suggest. It means that the drunken yells which usually pepper a live show are absent, to be replaced by an eerie silence that’s only broken by the rapt applause at the conclusion of each track.

As with opening act Gigi, NoSo draws deep upon a well of personal experience, the result are songs such as ‘You’re No Man’ and ‘Feeling Like A Woman Lately’ that explore themes of gender and racial identity. While our experience might no be exactly the same as NoSo’s, the duality and tensions that surround identities are something to which everybody can relate. However, when you strip away all the meaning behind the lyrics you are left with a bunch of well crafted songs which are given added impetus from being performed live and it soon becomes apparent why NoSo had already picked up so many plaudits and awards. The crowd certainly agree and greet songs such like ‘Suburbia’ the way you would an old friend, as things to be coddled, caressed and held close to heart. It’s not until final track. A super sweet version of ‘Sugar’ that the stage lights burst into life, refracting on a disco ball and shining good vibes throughout the venue. Of course, NoSo returns for a well-earned encore and a jaunty version of ‘David’ sends all home happy.

Set List:

1. A Believable Boy

2. You’re No Man

3. DAD MADE TOAST!

4. Honey Understand

5. Feeling Like A Woman Lately

6. But You Want Him

7. Who Made You This Sweet?

8. Nara

9. Suburbia

10. Let It Die

11. I Feel You

12. Sugar

Encore:

13. David