‘Intimate’ or ‘cozy’ would be an estate agent’s descriptions of the gig venue qualities of Warneford Chapel, on the site of the hospital at the town end of Headington, where Oxford Contemporary Music have been putting on an intermittent series of shows by quieter artists as part of their education and outreach programme. The chapel seats around 60 people in front of a stage area which looks just big enough to hold a duo, particularly a duo with as many instruments and toys as Duotone have tonight. Small shows can be the best, and also the worst, as there’s nowhere to hide and nothing to hide behind if things go wrong. Happily tonight that’s far from being an issue.

We open with local support from Half Moon scene regulars Jane Griffiths and Colin Fletcher, local folkies of some repute. The anticipatory fear sets in of half an hour of concert hall chamber folk music but we are spared that kind of dry, didactic delivery in favour of an enchanting set of largely Cornish, Scottish and Irish tunes perfectly suited to the space, the bill and the time of the summery evening. Fletcher’s acoustic guitar provides a solid but delicate base for Griffiths’ effortless fiddle playing and the whole is gentle without being soporific, major and melodic without being saccharine, traditional without being reverential.

Barney Morse-Brown is a musician of notable talent and diversity, having toured with Eliza Carthy, Chris Wood and the modern folk supergroup Imagined Village, and his Duotone project with percussionist James Garrett shows that he’s just as handy in the foreground as he is as a hired hand. By now he may be known to many locally for his dextrous combination of acoustic guitar, cello, voice and loop pedal, of which the latter would in less skilled hands be simply the memorable gimmick; a few years ago acts like Rose Kemp and Theo very effectively made the loop pedal the centre of their performance, but in Duotone it’s used only as a support for the songwriting rather than an iron lung that keeps a performance alive while restricting its movement. It never steals the show and is used deftly to enable Morse-Brown to construct the equivalent of a clean, multi-tracked studio recording before our eyes, and it is at the same time unobtrusive and impressive. Garrett assists on cajon, glockenspiel, shaker and cymbals, mostly played by hand, as well as adding backing vocals where appropriate, and the two musicians are hugely versatile individually and together, turning seamlessly from a gentle meditation to a cello and cajon breakbeat workout within half a minute. The musicianship is flawless throughout and Morse-Brown’s voice is clear, precise and unadorned, but not completely unemotional, combining with Garret’s to suggest a classically trained Kings of Convenience.

Selections from Duotone’s stunning debut album Work Harder And One Day You’ll Find Her comprise about half of the set, and guest performers are invited onto the stage for a few of the newer pieces. A soul-styled singer joins the duo for two songs: one is a fairly aimless noodle which sails dangerously close to self-indulgence; the other is a vastly different experience in which the male and female voices complement each other and demonstrate another beautifully written song – a high point to the set. Griffiths and Fletcher return as part of Duotone’s five piece string section – dubbed The Quintones – who sadly serve mainly to dilute the power of the performance, as if the composer Morse-Brown hasn’t found a space for them in the arrangement to do more than provide simple accompaniment. There is a feeling that they’re treading water a bit, though they do provide a backing for another welcome blast of thrash cello.

Back to a duo, the set ends with two of the standout songs from the album, both in memory of Morse-Brown’s wife Kate Garrett who died in 2009. ‘You Don’t Need Church’ is expanded with loops and loops of wonderfully woven layered vocals, and ‘Work Harder’ is contracted to a solo performance of touching simplicity, grace and heart. Morse-Brown can be seen discreetly wiping tears from his eyes at the end of the performance; here is a very English writer and performer quietly giving his all, awkward in on-stage speech but eloquent in song, heartfelt and focused, engaging and entrancing. An absolutely perfect show.