Eliza Delf and the Wilderness

Every so often someone has an idea that's so good, it feels like it must have been thought of before. Yet I can't bring to mind an antecedent to Matt Bull's delightful Diving Deep concept. The format of the evening was that the headline act picks its support, plays their choice of tunes during downtime, and the music is preceded by an interview with the headliner conducted by Matt. The choice of headliner, incidentally, was pragmatically determined by whoever Matt likes, which is fair enough. It certainly proved to be a winning formula last Saturday, and although Outline has dived deeper with Matt once before, it's my first time so I'm cross with myself for being so late to the party.

Before taking to the high board, however, a word about the venue. It's been a couple of months since I was last at the Holloway, and I had a shock when I saw the transformation. It's now a bijou bar upstairs – and very swish it looks too. If my enthusiasm is measured, it's only because I really liked the eccentric bookshop that once was. I guess there's only so long you can browse books on Black Shuck and Wicca's World before venturing downstairs – and in fairness there's still a fair few publications of that ilk dotted about. But the axis looks to have been tilted with the installation of a saloon-style bar in a nook where bookshelves and armchairs once hung out.

Would a newly minted subterranean cave await us down the precipitous staircase? The short answer is no. I think it's been given a lick of paint, but the performance area is still an agreeably tiny room no bigger than the shop/bar upstairs, into which an improbable sixty people were crammed, that number constituting the capacity for a sold-out gig.

Everyone turned up promptly, keen to hear what Eliza Delf and the Wilderness had to say for themselves. We did so, albeit after some impromptu pleading;

"There are some people upstairs who can't get downstairs," came the plaintive cry. "Can we all shuffle forward?"

Shortly after getting acquainted with our fellow audience members rather closer than imagined, lead singer Eliza and guitarist Jacob Browne took to their respective stools, while Matt questioned them from behind a giant harp. Like you do. He proved a fine interviewer, gently eliciting more from the band than perhaps either party imagined. Who knew that Eliza's appreciation of Kate Bush came not from her parents' record collection, but from a parody on Horrible Histories? Or that far from diving deep (to coin a phrase) into her psyche for lyrical inspiration she actually just makes stuff up. And who could possibly imagine that one of her favourite songs is Sabrina Carpenter's monumentally awful Please, Please, Please?

 The single observation I found most intriguing, however, was the evident unease, particularly for Eliza, with the band's name.

 "Are you the Wilderness?" asked Matt of the other three.

 "We are all Eliza Delf and the Wilderness," came the swift rebuttal

I think the reason for this is clear. I've seen Eliza play in a number of incarnations, and while she's performed with cellist Eva Wright from the outset, the two having met at UEA, the line-up has otherwise waxed and waned. With the recording of Feast, more of which later, the band has become more of a unit, and less of a singer and backing band. Consequently, the name is something Eliza is no longer entirely comfortable with. It brought to mind Rachel Unthank and the Winterset morphing into the Unthanks when that band (not just her sister) started collaborating.

The Delfs has a certain ring to it. And I have checked – it's not taken.

The harp, behind which Matt had manfully questioned, was subsequently manned by Simon Foerster, a prodigiously talented German musician who has recently made Norwich his home. We were treated to improvisations played on keyboards, trumpet and Japanese flute, frequently at the same time. Fine though his multi-instrumental work proved - I was reminded of the French-Swiss jazz trumpeter Erik Truffaz – it was his harp playing that left the most lasting impression. Sat somewhere on a line between the lush melodies of Ludovico Einaudi and the emphatic rhythmic repetition of Steve Reich, his superb harp compositions elevated the evening into something quite special.

There was more special to come, of course, with our headliners. Barring two songs, their set was made up entirely of the new album. Proof, if proof be needed, that this was the music which they feel best represents how they feel about themselves. Interestingly, if I may be allowed to misquote the late, great Eric Morecambe, they played all the right songs, but not necessarily in the right order. Given the current vogue for performing albums verbatim, this was an intriguing departure. Was this wish-fulfilling tinkering with a track listing they'd since had doubts about? Opening Feast with Look at Me, despite being one of its strongest songs (and my personal favourite, as it happens), struck me at the time as a bold move, so all but closing with it live did make more sense. Instead, their set opened with Twine, an unusually uplifting song that sets the mood perfectly, before settling down to the relative restraint of The Trick and Merry Go Round.

There was an evident energy to the band's performance that informed how they sound – to my mind with a rockier, edgy intensity I've not heard from them before. Whether it was born of enthusiasm having hibernated over winter, the intimacy of performing inches from their audience, or simply the room's acoustics, they have never sounded better. Heaviness in the Head and In the Court of the Queen of Strangeness – both featured on Eliza's first album – slipped effortlessly into the set, notwithstanding that another key song from Feast was sandwiched in between them.

Uncanny, I had presumed – if not a tribute to Danny Robins – did at least explore the same spooky territory. It is, after all, very dark around the Suffolk border. Turns out, she explained, it's actually about how closely Eliza resembles her parents. Having met her dad, it must be her mum she had in mind. It's illustrative of how tempting it is to project meaning onto songs with quite prosaic roots. Common Law, she explained, was simply about getting married, while Don't Love Me Lightly is - astonishingly - a distraction from the crippling fear of death. The inclination to decode songs that speak of "inching your way amongst the worms" surely stems from the intensity of Eliza's performance. Close up and personal it can be mesmerising, but also hard to watch. I found my gaze averting, as if needing a rest, instead content to watch Tim Skinner's beatific smile as his subtle percussion occasionally exploded into life, only to be tempered by his intriguing collection of tea towels. Eva Wright's cello, as always, did so much of the heavy lifting, giving the band its unique sound, freeing Jacob Browne to skitter counter-pointedly with his acoustic guitar. I'm reliably informed they are looking for a bass player. I can only say that to my ears things sounded just fine as they are.

The set looked to be closing on the rollicking Threshold, but there is always room for one more song. Barefoot in the Ashes demonstrated that for all Eliza's vocal gymnastics, simplicity can be just as effective. It was a fitting end for a singer who had performed barefoot throughout and who, in the spirit of full disclosure, handed me a helpful copy of their set list. I noticed that the final song had been printed in a lighter shade, presumably indicating its inclusion as a faux encore was predicated on things going well. They needn't have worried. Things went very well indeed.