Sharon Van Etten and Sarah Jaffe Turn St. David's Church Into a Confessional at SXSW

Between the natural acoustics and an intensely personal repertoire of songs, a church was a rather fitting venue for singer-songwriters Sharon Van Etten and Sarah Jaffe. Both played St. David's Historic Sanctuary on Thursday night for SXSW and turned the room into a confessional of sorts.

Van Etten performed tracks from her stripped-down debut, 'Because I Was In Love,' an album mostly full of heartbreak with lines like "I came to you/My conscious clean/Got on my knees/The moral of the story is don't walk away again" in 'Consolation Prize' and "I'm so tired I can hardly shut my eyes/Looking up to the sky to believe in me" in 'Heart in the Ground.' She plucked chords on a clean electric guitar but the focus was mostly on her voice, a pure and stunning alto croon that likely could have filled the whole sanctuary even without a microphone.

Jaffe took the sound level up a notch with a four-piece band that included bass, accordion, percussion, violin and an extra guitar. They opened with the waltz 'Before You Go,' the first track on Jaffe's upcoming record, 'Suburban Nature.' On one track she played only the neck of her guitar, tapping the strings instead of plucking them to get the notes, while band member Robert Gomez's guitar sometimes took on a reverbed effect reminiscent of M. Ward.

Like Van Etten, Jaffe's songs are sometimes about losing power, most obviously when she admits, "I've got my hands up, I'm feeling vulnerable" in 'Vulnerable.' Even with the serious nature of the venue and sometimes her songs, Jaffe kept a sense of humor: After joking that she was weeping in the back during Van Etten's set (not that that would have been out of place), she told the crowd, "Don't take me seriously here. This is the wrong place to take me seriously."