START-TRACK AT SHOW: Rapt + Luke De-Sciscio @ The Ivy House – July 11, 2025

On a sweltering summer night in South London (31°), I travelled to The Ivy House in Nunhead – London’s first community pub – to bear witness to the folky pairing of Start Track’s very own Rapt & Luke De-Sciscio.

In these intimate, characterful and stiflingly hot surroundings, Rapt, aka Jacob Ware, is cool as a cucumber and in exquisite form. With the small but appreciative audience in the palm of his hand from beginning to end, he meanders through a set composed of seven songs and interspersed with professional, engaging and humorous chat.

The nylon strings of his classical guitar positively sing as he starts with Attar Of Roses which is, putting it mildly, artistry at its finest. Delicate and precise, he’s a wizard on the fretboard. The arpeggios of the intro ensure reverential silence throughout the room. As the song proceeds, it becomes bigger and bolder and more assured. Each style has its merit and complements the other part perfectly.

We’re reminded of Nick Drake and can’t help but think about how he was underappreciated whilst he was operational and active as an artist, and only given the recognition he deserved when it was too late.

The Nest follows, which in the ambiguous words of Ware is “an ode to a friend who had to go away for a while”. It’s a touching and gentle piece centred around alternate picking that flows as naturally as the famous river that we’re currently sitting not too far from.

White Sage is up next, which is a new and as yet unreleased song. Again, the picking here is “chef’s kiss”. Jacob seems to go into an almost trance-like state on the verses as he pours out his soul on this ode to his hometown of Brighton. “What if I just want something to hold and not much more?” he sings as he hints at an intimacy that has been prevalent throughout the set. The lead lines he plays at the same time as the rhythm parts are, frankly, mind-blowing – we’re reminded of folk maestros Davey Graham and Bert Jansch.

After a quick alcohol break (he asked the audience to vote – alcohol or water – the result was a resounding “ALCOHOL!” – good old England), recent single and Casiotone For The Painfully Alone cover version Natural Light gets an airing. It is as compelling as the studio version. You could hear a pin drop in this room. Still, the crowd are too enchanted to be doing anything else apart from dedicating themselves to him in this moment.

North Star is up next and is the shortest song he’s ever written. It’s as hypnotic as the songs that preceded it. It sounds as though two guitarists are playing at once, such is the wizardry of his performance – it’s anything but jarring (that’s an inside joke/reference – you had to be there)…

Ocean Lay Straight – another new song – follows and is in keeping nicely with the tone of the rest of the set. The traditional English folk tones that have been prevalent throughout seem to grow and become more pronounced. There’s an almost raga-like feel to the guitar here that reminds us of the equally excellent Spiralling Skeleton Going Down by the fantastic James Blackshaw. The harmonic finale is the icing on the cake.

The set concludes with the epic, expressive, impassioned A Theory Of Resistance. The song, taken from the album “Until The Light Takes Us” and lasting over 7 minutes, is also featured tonight, with a similar length, possibly even longer. It serves as an anthem for fighting back and powering through. In the introduction, Jacob touches on the health struggles he’s had to endure and overcome throughout his life, including epilepsy and rheumatoid arthritis; this insight lends the song an added dimension and level of appreciation that it otherwise might not have had (as marvellous as it is). “Walk in your given shoes”, he sings, and the line takes on that much more levity, considering the anecdote. Context is important. Sentiment apart, the guitar playing is astonishing, with dexterity and skill that made me literally say “woah” out loud.

Absolutely mesmeric, rapturous and enchanting. Run, don’t walk, to the next lot of shows that he plays.

After a short break that feels like an eternity, primarily down to the heat, Luke De-Sciscio takes the stage.

He is charming, charismatic and compelling. Clad in a white vest (sensible) and joined by a pint of Guinness and a pint of water (for life is about balance), he enthrals and enchants in equal measure.

When he makes eye contact with you, it feels as though he is peering into the depths of your very soul, like he can see your heart. No exaggeration. He has no set list. So I can’t tell you with absolute certainty the names of the songs. But what I can tell you is that he’s as mesmerising as what came before him. But in a very different way.

Part Jeff Buckley, part Ahnoni, he tells the people in the audience before he launches into his first song that he’s “going to sing his guts out for you”. That much is inarguable. As he pours out his soul, his voice is transcendent, powerful and pronounced. On stage, he’s a towering presence, and the delicacy and beauty of his musical delivery seem to stand at odds with his imposing physical stature.

Changeling Irish singer/songwriter Fionn Regan commands – no, demands – your attention. His vibrato is absolutely hypnotic, and by the end of his first song, he has the audience, particularly the ladies (I’m sorry, but it must be said), firmly under his spell. He backs away from the microphone as the song concludes, but his voice is no less powerful.

I’m Not Feeling With My Head is the second song performed and is a slightly more upbeat number built around percussive rhythm guitar. His hyper-stylised vocal again takes centre stage and feels almost like what you imagine a hummingbird might sound like if it sang. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a vibrato quite like it. It almost sounds like there’s an effect on his voice. But this is 100% au naturel.

On the third track, we “lean into the delirium” and are encouraged to sing along. De-Sciscio is remarkably comfortable on stage, like he was born to be there. It feels like a character trait that is somewhat at odds with the tender, reserved nature of his songs. Again, I can’t help but feel like he’s singing to me as he sings “I’m yours now”, and I’ve got to say, I’m not a gay man but… His banter and engagement are intoxicating, and as enthralled as the ladies closest to the stage are tonight, I can say that I’m right there with them. Make of that what you will.

I Gave You All My Love is up next. He mentions the video where he is gradually absorbed by seaweed and talks about the pain of suffering for his art. I’m sure we can all empathise, sitting here in this fucking sweatbox. But the song begins, and suddenly the temperature is the least of your concerns, for there are many more pressing matters on stage. Luke grimaces as he sings, and you feel every word, just as he obviously does. As I drag my perspiring beer glass across my forehead in an attempt to cool myself down, the temperature on stage rises even more as De-Sciscio trills into the microphone and dazzles the intimate audience.

Robyn follows. Named after his partner and mother to his child (shout out little Theodora), it’s “a song about following your dreams”. He eventually coerces the crowd into singing along to spell out the name of his lover, “R-O-B-Y-N” over and over again, each time more charming and endearing than before. His stage presence ramps up on this song as, with a swivel of the hips, he feels almost like a 21st-century acoustic Elvis Presley. If that sounds overblown, witness him live for yourself and let me know if I’m wrong.

Down the front, Jackie in the leopard-print dress has been very keen throughout. The spotlight is turned on her, and she is cordially invited to request a song. This turns out to be another song related to the aforementioned baby Theodora. Based on the shadow that Luke casts whilst holding his infant daughter – a shadow with two heads – it’s a song about perspective and introspection, exhaustion and observation and like the rest of this set, it’s utterly enthralling. If we didn’t know that his missus was back home with baby Theo, we’d guess that Jackie was his partner, as she loves it so much.

For the next song, Luke turns off the fans because this song is especially delicate and requires your absolute investment. It’s about being a lunatic, and he may well be just that, turning off the fans in this ridiculous heat. He risks the wrath of the audience, but thankfully, all’s well that ends well. Sounding a bit like another Jeff Buckley understudy – Muse’s Matt Bellamy, the song is an epic, soaring piece that is as soulful as it is spectacular.

After a protracted introduction – centred around his professional aspirations and career goals, a song about Luke’s lofty dreams follows – and at this point, you desperately want those dreams to come true for him. Fans or no fans. He sings about being “born into raging storms” and I think momentarily of my own children and the circumstances they were thrust into against their will and how – in the words of the act that preceded him – we can only “walk in (y)our given shoes”. As he sings “I’m born every minute and die every night” the realisation that this song is bigger than all of us hits like a tonne of bricks.

His last song is played on his grandfather’s old guitar. It’s more than sixty years old, and it’s from a brand that no longer exists because it was too good. Taken from an album called Heaven, it’s a bassy, comparatively dark number that recalls the early work of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst (potentially Kathy With A K’s Song?) He sings of angels and heaven, and his trademark vocal gymnastics put on a show that is absolutely unignorable.

The unique control De-Sciscio has over this audience can’t be overstated, and it’s not hard to imagine him performing these songs to a larger crowd in the coming months and years. When we left the pub and got outside afterwards, we overheard an impressed audience member mention to the person he was with that De-Sciscio should be playing to 15,000 people rather than the 15 who were lucky enough to be here tonight. We wholeheartedly agree. Who knows what’s to come? Watch this space.

Written by Kinda Grizzly