Nala Sinephro: Endlessness Live at St Ann & The Holy Trinity, Brooklyn

May 8, 2024

40°41′40.5″N 73°59′34.71″W
57°F, clear skies, light breeze from the northwest

I wasn’t supposed to be at this show. It had been sold out for weeks. I had added myself to the waitlist on the Dice app and then tried to forget about it. I figured the odds were low. Then, the day before the concert, I got a push notification. A single ticket had been released. I clicked so fast I barely had time to think. There was a countdown timer. Ten minutes to claim it or it would be gone. My heart was pounding. I triple-checked everything and hit confirm just before the time ran out. When the confirmation finally came through, I sat in disbelief. Somehow, I was going.

The show took place at St Ann & The Holy Trinity Church, a 19th-century Episcopal cathedral tucked between the brownstones of Brooklyn Heights. It’s the kind of building that immediately slows you down. Vaulted ceilings. Intricate stone columns. Stained glass windows that catch light in ways you don’t fully notice until you’re sitting beneath them. The pews creak. The air feels older. Even the silence has weight.

And somehow, it made perfect sense that this was where Nala Sinephro’s Endlessness would be performed. Her music doesn’t demand attention. It invites it. It feels sacred without trying to be. Spacious without feeling empty. To hear it in a space built for echo, stillness, and reverence didn’t just elevate the experience. It revealed something essential about the music itself.

I arrived early. People were already finding seats, sitting quietly, almost instinctively lowering their voices. There was no opener. No drinks. No chatter. Just the last light of the evening filtering through the windows and three stage lights illuminating the inner sanctuary. It felt less like a concert and more like we were gathering for something ceremonial.

Who Is Nala Sinephro?

If you’re new to her work, Nala Sinephro is a composer and multi-instrumentalist based in London. She plays modular synth, harp, piano, and keys, creating music that lives somewhere between ambient, jazz, and experimental electronic. Born in 1996 to a Belgian mother and a Caribbean father, she grew up in a household shaped by classical and jazz traditions. You can hear that balance in her sound: technical but intuitive, lush but minimal, fluid but grounded. Her debut album Space 1.8 came out in 2021 and felt like a portal. Her follow-up, Endlessness, was released earlier this year and builds on that atmosphere with a deeper, more expansive reach. Both albums feel like they’re meant to be experienced in full, not chopped up into playlists.

The Performance

There was no introduction. Just a slow fade into sound. The music didn’t follow a setlist or structure. It flowed as one continuous suite, with no obvious breaks. The band was a quartet: modular synth, harp, drums, sax. They played with so much restraint that it felt like they were holding space rather than filling it. Nala sat quietly at her rig, adjusting chords and triggering patterns that expanded gently. The synth arpeggios created a soft pulse under everything, like a slow heartbeat. The harp shimmered in and out. The drums were barely there; brushes, cymbals, texture more than rhythm. The saxophone would emerge, linger, and fall away again. There was no moment of drama, no big crescendo. But still, the room stayed locked in.

What I Felt

Somewhere in the middle, I closed my eyes and felt like I was floating. Not in a euphoric way, but in the way you do when you stop bracing yourself. The music felt like water. Not crashing, just moving. I thought about how loud the past few months had been. How much I’ve had to push through. I felt it all rise up quietly during that set, not because the music told me to feel anything specific, but because it made room for whatever needed to show up. Nala’s music doesn’t guide you so much as it lets you drift. It doesn’t build toward a single release. It keeps unfolding. It teaches you how to listen slowly.

The Room

When it ended, no one moved. The final sounds hung in the rafters for what felt like minutes. It was the rare kind of silence that doesn’t ask to be filled. And when we finally applauded, it wasn’t loud. It was grateful. No one rushed out. Some people stayed seated. A few people hugged. We had all just come out of something and needed a second to return to ourselves.

Where to Start with Nala Sinephro

If you’re curious to dive in, here’s a small guide:

Albums

• Space 1.8 (2021): gentle, open, and meditative. Great for late nights or quiet mornings.

• Endlessness (2024): deeper, more layered, and immersive. Best listened to all the way through.

Tracks

• “Continuum 1” from Endlessness: a soft entry into a long journey.

• “Space 3” from Space 1.8: spacious, glowing, emotionally steady.

How to listen

Find a quiet place. Put on good headphones. Let it play from beginning to end. Don’t skip. Don’t analyze. Just be there.

This wasn’t just one of the best shows I’ve seen this year. It was a reminder that music doesn’t always have to grab you to move you. Sometimes it just has to meet you where you are. What’s been hitting for you lately?

What concerts have been to in the past 5 months? I’d love to know.

stay noisy friends,
xoxo
Saint Virgil