The formality of a church on Sunday imposes itself on Rachel Zeffira’s gig in Dublin’s Unitarian Church as she plays in Ireland for the first time. Something about the environment seems to amplify silence to an uncomfortable level, like everyone’s waiting to be preached to and any noise could potentially be a profound truth or a life-altering idea. The common chatter that echoes up to the high roof and back down to the pews seems silly, and so with very little talk Rachel and her band play their songs.

The enforced silence between songs gives a strange tinge to the whole set. Without any interaction between numbers the pacing seems very abrupt, like a car rolling down a hill. There is almost no time to digest the song you just heard or to want the one that’s coming next. Nonetheless there are several fine moments in the gig. Rachel doesn’t impose her personality on proceedings very much at all, so it’s completely up to the music to do that. The song Front Door both lyrically and musically communicates a focus on a more tranquilized form of turmoil, a Zen-like method of dealing with discomfiture through her music’s warm tones.

The band consists of an oboist, a cellist, a drummer, two backup singers (one of which is an occasional flautist) and Rachel makes use of piano, organ and marimba. Songs on which the whole band plays can get a bit heavy in the echoey church, drowning out the voice, as happens when they perform the otherwise enjoyable and upbeat Break The Spell. It is the song Silver City Days, a quieter piano-ballad, that is both more emotionally engaging and a great example of Rachel’s extraordinary talent as an instrumentalist.

Perhaps the single most impressive moment of the gig is when Rachel steps right up in front of the pews to the marimba and with four mallets held between her fingers, taps out the opening melody to the Beatles’ Because. She sings this with her backing singers and her cellist in a singing role and it looks like Rachel is performing a nigh on impossible piece of multi-tasking with the utmost of ease.

At times the sound doesn’t meld quite perfectly as in the cover of My Bloody Valentine’s To Here Knows When when the simple hi-hat tapping of the drums acting as little more than a metronome comes across too loud and takes away from the melodies of the cello. The drums are intrusive at times but at others it is completely necessary as when the full band plays a truly hypnotising version of her song Star at the end of the set. For the awkward stillness of the silence, these songs feel like the church is fulfilling its role of sanctuary, like coming indoors on a freezing night.