It’s a grey murky night on the Isle of Dogs but inside candle-lit converted church The Space some of London’s freshest new musical talent is making the sun shine. Compered by Resonance FM’s The Other Woman DJ Ruth Barnes, the evening’s proceedings are opened by award-winning (in Malta!) Carrie Haber, a piano-tinkering songstress whose sheer exhuberance is a suger-rushing delight to watch. She may be diminutive even teetering on 4 inch red stilettos, but her voice fills the room with rainbow colours on the sassy melodies Fisherman and Crash and Burn. Her unique expressive style on the whimsical I Need a Distraction and Me Oh My is utterly infectious – think Marina and the Diamonds and Gwen Stefani fizzed up together in a Soda Stream of kookiness.

The pretty country-tinged melodies of The Piney Gir Country Roadshow follow, with songs from their superb new albumJesus Wept. Fast Cryin’ and Lucky Me are delicious slices of pop pie and feature the cutest use of melodica you’ll hear all year while Claw Machine would be a hit in the Dixie Chicks’ hands, pure and simple. Kansas-via-North-London gal Angela Penhaligon’s warm caramel vocals are backed up by the band’s shimmering harmonies especially on the catchy girl/boy fusion Dog ‘n’ Bone and the Beach Boys-esque ooh-bop-bops of 40 Days and Nights. The bluesy tequila-fuelledMaster/Mistress is cowgirl-feminism in a Stetson (intriguingly penned mostly by the band’s drummer Dave Fisher) and the boot-scooting I Was Born in a Thunderstorm sure as hellfire brings the church down. Yeeha!

Mishaped Pearls are altogether out of this world as we know it. The London-based seven-piece take their name from the Portuguese word for Baroque (literally ‘misshapen pearl’) and combine absorbing folk sensibilities and traditional instruments in an exquisitely beautiful opera/world music soundscape. The songs, in five different languages, written by Ged Flood with lyrics researched from ancient poetry by Manuela Schuette, have a timeless quality. With mandolin, cello and cajon amongst others, the sound is a hypnotic heady blend of sonnet and swirling ambience. Classically-trained mezzo-soprano Schuette is captivating in voice and presence; at once beguiling chanteuse on the bewitching Le Reveur and L’Aimee de Sappho and spellbinding opera diva on the breathtaking crescendo of Aurora. Newer material Le Puy-en-Velay, haunting sea shanty Wind of the Air and the hot fiery Spanish passion of banjo-driven El Sol, La Luna, Las Estrellas hint at a rich darker direction and leave you enraptured and gasping for more. It’s time to go global. Baroque and roll!

Photography by Talya Jacoby