Rainy Boy Sleep with support from Chelsey Chambers
Friday 24th October 2014 – Mason’s, Derry

Having recently signed to Universal, this is the penultimate Northern Irish show for the singer-songwriter Rainy Boy Sleep. Promoting his new EP, “Ambulance”, he is effortlessly straddling the transition from renowned local artist to a major act, continuing to strike the balance between larger venues and more intimate ones.

With no announcement, Chelsey Chambers took to the stage. Her strength lies in her vocal performance, with her self-styled strain of country-pop making for easy listening. Performing tracks such as ‘Turn Back Time’ and ‘A Million Homes’, it is obvious that her song writing is highly personal, and is brimming with pleasantly relaxing harmonies and hooks. Despite her quietly confident performance, she leaves the stage with little ceremony.

After a brief amount of fine tuning, Rainy Boy Sleep stepped up to the mic, kicking off with an unreleased and acutely melodic song called ‘Jeanie’- it’s a solid start, but so far, nothing out of the ordinary. However, the wonderfully witty ‘Yours Truly’ takes on a new depth in such an intimate venue; never has writing letters to dead girls seemed so hopelessly romantic (or plausible) a concept.

By the time he reaches the ode to platonic love, ‘Shopping Centre Song’, he has well and truly broken into his stride. The self-assured swagger with which he performs has become even more pronounced with the addition of some shiny new backing tracks (courtesy of the prolific dance producer, Reuben Keeney), and is nothing short of endearing, making him even more engaging to observe. The wonderfully melancholic ‘One After One’ follows – it is something of an oxymoron in that it manages to be powerful yet subdued, beautiful but haunting all at once, all of which are indicative of a truly great songwriter.

The lead track from his forthcoming album, ‘Waiting Games’ is a sweet, agreeable, but somewhat anaemic offering, serving primarily to showcase his dizzying vocal range (and presumably, is intended to appeal to both radio stations and his hoard of female fans). ‘Your Face’, penned at Glastonbury 2011, fulfils a similar purpose, and from anybody else, such a song would surely be praised; however, it lacks his trademark acerbic twist, and is verging on being overly sentimental, which is nothing short of a pity when his capacity for being sharp is otherwise so evident.

Thankfully, the bite re-enters his performance in the shape of the charmingly self-deprecating ‘Stupid Boy’, but for me, the show is stolen by ‘Manchester Post’, which has been revamped to the point that it is barely recognisable. A track which admittedly, I previously found underwhelming, is now stunning in the most unexpected way- it is punchy and danceable, and despite its genre-bending tone, lends his self-defined label of “folktronica” some real meaning.

The set is rounded off with the crash course in duality that is the title track of his recently released EP, ‘Ambulance’. The notably dark subject matter (which just happens to be violence within an abusive relationship, since you asked) is presented in a jaunty, playful, almost joyous way, complete with a children’s choir on backing vocals. The contrast between the uplifting harmonies and the brutality of the lyrics is at no point either inappropriate or misleading: it is truly clever, which is even further evidence that Rainy Boy Sleep is a musical talent that is not to be underestimated by any means.

A compelling set from an intriguing artist, the only disappointment of the evening was the lack of audience turnout, but he even managed to turn this to his advantage: instead of feeling (relatively) sparsely populated, the room felt full of excitement and bated breath. It’s difficult not to feel rather privileged, as seeing a performer as truly stellar as Rainy Boy Sleep in such an intimate venue is a rarity, especially in the face of his surely imminent success.