“Listen, we’re all jetlagged as shit. Who wants to fucking party?”

On record, the blissed-out nature of Beach Fossils‘ surf-pop sound can, at times, almost trick you into thinking that they might be, by their nature, a little placid; just a couple of songs into their set tonight, they’re clearly eager to dispel that notion. That, or they’re just trying to prove they’re as adept at rabble-rousing as their Captured Tracks labelmate, Mac DeMarco.

As the band whir into the eponymous opener from February’s Clash the Truth, frontman Dustin Payseur – who, for all intents and purposes, pretty much is Beach Fossils –  announces his arrival by diving headfirst into the crowd. After wrapping touring commitments for the What a Pleasure EP in 2011, Payseur was faced with having to put together a new lineup to back him onstage, with the previous group having gone their separate ways to pursue individual projects; the most notable of those was former live guitarist Zachary Cole Smith, now making waves with DIIV.

The new band’s approach mirrors that of Payseur’s on Clash the Truth; everything’s faster, sharper and considerably more urgent, with a selection of tracks new and old relayed in blistering fashion. On ‘Shallow’, they channel the harmonic stylings of fellow Captured Tracksmen Wild Nothing, but infuse them with the kind of energy and buzz that make Beach Fossils a considerably more compelling live proposition. The studio version of ‘Birthday’ is a tight guitar-pop number that manages to sound both bouncy and reflective; onstage, it borders on punk, manifesting itself in a much rawer manner.

Most of Clash the Truth‘s more restrained efforts are left by the wayside tonight; the quieter, calmer likes of ‘Sleep Apnea’ or ‘In Vertigo’ were never really likely to displace the fizzing ‘Caustic Cross’ or ‘Generational Synthetic’ as part of a set that is designed to accommodate and accentuate the more frenetic side of the Beach Fossils catalogue. Which leads me to the only real problem with that approach; it doesn’t really allow for the simple weaving in and out of older cuts from the self-titled debut, which is largely characterised by a mellower, more laidback sound, which doesn’t always fit with the often furious nature of Clash the Truth.

‘The Horse’ and ‘Vacation’ are already perfectly chirpy pop songs, and they didn’t really need – nor do they benefit from – any alteration in tempo.  Conversely, ‘Youth’ and EP cut ‘Calyer’ are relayed far more faithfully, which begs the question of whether it might’ve been a smarter idea to structure the setlist such that older material could’ve been eased in, rather than awkwardly shoehorned.

It’s difficult, though, to deny that the band’s energy levels throughout their hour or so on stage are pretty arresting, and certainly do justice to Payseur’s vision on the latest LP. If sweaty, frantic live shows are crucial to the direction in which he wants to take Beach Fossils, we should be grateful that he’s capable of pulling them off with such aplomb.

The time has come for Danish post-pop quartet When Saints Go Machine to release their much-anticipated third long-player. Infinity Pool is a highly synthetic effort that sees the band fall further into the rabbit hole of electronica. Almost every strand of sound has a sci-fi twang to it – from the manufactured beats to the robotic tenor of Nikolaj Manuel Vonsild. Where previous cuts like ‘Kelly’ were slathered in radio earworms for easy access, this fresh venture sees them favour the avante-garde, delving into experimental pastures rather than a comfort zone – there are still moments of pop grandeur, but not the kind that Grimmy would play.

They’ve inseminated their brooding, seedy noises with distant genres like ’90s house, trance and hip-hop (just listen to the Killer Mike collaboration, ‘Love And Respect’), creating the kind of genre that would get played in abandoned warehouses on the outskirts of London or strobe-lit basements in NYC. It’s a languid rave, everything pulsing and throbbing exactly at the right moment, but never fast enough to cut shapes to. It’s not for glowsticks. Infinity Pool also nurtures a psychedelic facet, a dimension of the music that’s distorted and woozy, riddled with technicolour hallucinations and dilated time, where concepts of space become a rainbow reality.

‘Infinity Killer’ features Vonsild’s R&B vocals up front, a common motif on the record. There are similarities to The Child Of Lov, but where Lov veers towards Southern rap/soul, WSGM sprint towards dance music, and the rhythmic pitter-patter of house. Their sound isn’t identical by any means, but their methods are alike – they’ve both dissected worn styles and screwed them back together in a unique way. ‘Iodine’ is another example, bringing shuffling hip-hop percussion together with the sacresanct screech of organs and strings to create a sort of urban hymn, like a ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ for the Age Of Information.

For all the pop pomp, the LP seems like it embodies the aftermath of a global disaster – there’s stages of unrelenting destruction, moments of isolated clarity and parts where the dust has settled and you can look to the future – in that respect, it’s highly cathartic. There’s a traumatic undercurrent throughout, but even in the darkest corners there’s an element of hope and determination, ensuring that the record doesn’t descend into a dark pit of despair. Infinity Pool is the kind of album that you’d listen to in the eye of a storm; as chaos rages around, you can experience a desolate calm.

‘Mental Shopping Spree’ whips and darts in erratic directions, with polyrhythms dancing in the background and a focal strain of dubstep-infused sound. They tactfully avoid becoming a Skrillex knock-off by merely using the dramatic fizz, rather than migraine wobs. ‘Degeneration’ is also bass-heavy, though far more malnourished in terms of texture – most of the time it’s just one whirring synth and Vonsild’s affected vocals.

Infinity Pool is ridiculously ambitious, but fortunately the gamble pays off. It’s not an album that will leap out and grab your lapels demanding attention, it’s one that’s quite content inside itself, one that will require you to listen closely and tease out the genius. On the surface it’s pretty alienating, perhaps fans won’t agree with the direction they’re taking, but in the long-run When Saints Go Machine will reap the rewards. They prove here that they are masters of all they survey, crafting an anthology of innovative tracks that feature pop streaks. They’ve struck a perfect balance between pushing boundaries and making people dance.

Anyone hoping to hear elements of the gritty guitar-infused rock of Wye Oak on Dungeonesse‘s self-titled debut album are bound to be in for a shock. A welcome one, but still a shock nonetheless. Sure, Jenn Wasner’s soaring vocals breathe life and spirit into both diverse projects, but with Dungeonesse, her dulcet tones float over a funky, disco-pop pulse instead of the wistful, Neil Young-like Americana of her other band.

Wasner collaborated on Dungeonesse with Jon Ehrens, from fellow Baltimore band White Life, with the pair sending each other portions of songs which they would add sonic flourishes to until they were complete. And what arose out of the project is a fresh, upbeat batch of slick R&B-inspired jams that are clearly indebted to many past eras of pop music, while still managing to sound entirely modern and original in the process.

The album launches playfully with the vibrant, Mariah Carey-like bounce of ‘Schucks,’ which has plenty of buoyant echoes of Mimi’s ‘Fantasy’ layered within its luxuriously textured synth strains, while Wasner is clearly having fun delivering the track’s self-assured but decidedly frisky lyrics. That lighthearted spirit courses through the entire record, injecting these songs with a translucent charm that makes them light as a breeze while still maintaining a club-anthem cool that will have everybody nodding their heads, no matter what side of the indie/pop line you stand on.

The rest of the album sashays on by with very few missteps, even though both artists find themselves a fair way outside of their musical comfort zones. ‘Drive You Crazy’ is an unquestionable pop gem, with Wasner’s vocals quickly adapting to the rapid fire beats generated by Ehrens, while the moody ‘Show You,’ still maintains a lively effervescence within the hazy synth cadence. ‘Private Party’ would sound perfectly appropriate playing in a nightclub or roller-skating rink (remember those?) in any of the past four decades, with a distinctive twist on the best that pop, disco, R&B, and soul have to offer.

While the contributions from both TT the Artist and Baltimore emcee DDm both sound a bit forced and out of place on a project that doesn’t need any outside help, they ultimately are such minimal blunders that they pass by without dragging these dynamic tracks down. The best part of this record is that no matter how indebted these songs are to the Top 40 pop hits of yesterday, this collection never approaches pastiche, with both Wasner and Ehrens percipiently aware of the imaginative direction they want these jaunty numbers to take.

The record also manages to stylistically capture the beginning, middle, and end of a fabulous night out in the city as well as the fitful elation and heartache involved in any love affair. ‘Shucks’ seems to handle the primping involved in any foray out on the town, while ‘Private Party’ and ‘Nightlife’ both capture the energy and endless possibilities that lie just beyond the door of any club. And ‘Wake Me Up,’ ‘Cadillac,’ and ‘Soon’ all convey wanting something real and tangible after the craziness dies down and the artificial sheen of the city gets scrubbed away by the daylight.

There’s no telling what the lasting power is for a project like Dungeonesse, with both Wasner and Ehrens having other bands to fall back on. But if this ends up being just a fanciful one-off, what a splendid and stunning sonic detour this was. The Baltimore duo boldly and confidently stepped way outside of their own respective musical boundaries on this project, and crafted some irrepressible pop treats of their own that don’t have any hints of the saccharine toxicity and self-seriousness that plagues much of the mindless hits of today. Dungeonesse have brazenly managed to distill the best parts of modern and classic pop radio down to a sweet, everlasting core while creating their own sparkling, sugary sound in the process.

The song that, for all intents and purposes, proved to be Laura Marling‘s breakthrough provides an interesting instrument with which to gauge her relentless progression over the course of her short career to date. ‘New Romantic’ is wonderfully written; honest, witty, somehow both charming and heartbreaking, and yet it seems, by way of comparison to what’s come since, almost juvenile.

The failed-relationship basics of the lyrics stand out; Marling doesn’t write songs with turns of phrase like ‘pretty fit’ any more. Some of the vocal nuances commonplace on later records had yet to emerge, and the nerves that threatened to cripple her live performance of it on Jools Holland back in 2007 are a thing of the past. That a fundamentally excellent track seems a little simple, in retrospect, speaks volumes about how rapidly Marling has managed to nurture her considerable talent as a songwriter.

Her second full-length, I Speak Because I Can, was a huge leap forward, startlingly mature in pretty much every aspect. Lyrically, she moved in a far more oblique direction, replete with historical references, whilst a firm sonic shift into folk territory would invite favourable comparisons with Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell. The days of chipping in on chirpy pop songs with Noah and the Whale and Mystery Jets were already a distant memory at the age of just twenty, and constant critical use of the word ‘precocious’ was an almost-insulting understatement. The follow-up, A Creature I Don’t Know, served mainly to build on Speak‘s folk foundations, with just enough evidence to suggest efforts were being made to experiment; the stormy drama of ‘The Beast’ and ‘The Muse’s Americana-tinged shuffle are cases in point.

Opening Once I Was an Eagle with a four-song, fifteen-minute suite is certainly indicative of Marling’s ambition, but it’s by no means overblown. She doesn’t really do kitchen-sink, and these first four tracks are a masterclass in restraint; with the vocals and acoustic guitar the only constants, further flourishes are included only where necessary – tom-tom drums and strings on ‘I Was an Eagle’, touches of piano on ‘Take the Night Off’. These opening fifteen minutes serve as a metaphor for the record as a whole, a reflection of its largely cohesive feel. This is especially true in lyrical terms; uncertainty and foreboding are ubiquitous, as is the more direct approach to the topic of love than on her last two albums.

It’s difficult to decide whether Marling’s experimental self-discipline is frustratingly conservative or impressively prudent. ‘Little Love Caster’ is a quiet, minimalist effort in the mould of the older likes of ‘What He Wrote’ or ‘Rest in the Bed’, flecked with Spanish guitars and a brooding string arrangement, and the Dylan-esque ‘Where Can I Go?’ is underscored by a breezy organ. Those tracks successfully apply a little diversity to the tried-and-true Marling template, but the record’s truly thrilling moments arrive when she lets new ideas dictate her songwriting. ‘Master Hunter’ is a revelation, simple pot-and-pan percussion drowned out by rollicking guitar and a genuinely aggressive vocal. ‘Devil’s Resting Place’ sees menacing, almost tribal drums race alongside frantic keys, with erratic, Indian-inspired string runs helping to create a sound dramatic enough to conjure up the images of the occult that the title hints at.

Marling manages to keep the quieter tracks stylistically diverse enough to suggest that there’s real progression; on ‘Pray for Me’, a song she’s been playing live since 2011, she opts for an intriguing combination of picked guitar, cello and bongos, whilst there’s plenty of bluesy flourish in the vocals on ‘When Were You Happy? (And How Long Has It Been)’. It’s unquestionably a more adventurous album than Creature, and perhaps the one caveat to its excellence is its sprawling running time; sixteen tracks over the course of more than an hour always sounded like potential overkill. There are a couple of tracks that might’ve missed the cut – the ponderous ‘Little Bird’ is a prime contender – but you could probably argue that to do so would be to miss the point of a record that’s supposed to be expansive, that was never meant to seem pithy, and that really is intended to serve as a vehicle for Marling to dip her toe in a variety of waters.

That she’s done so in such an organised manner, producing a record that’s diverse but not disparate, is hugely to her credit. She might not be interested in a full-blown departure just yet, but her twenty-three years of age and prodigious work rate both count in her favour on that score. Marling has delivered Once I Was an Eagle with a charisma lacking in most of her peers, and the poise of a far older hand. She’s no longer one of the country’s most exciting prospects; she’s one of its greatest songwriters.

On the whole, one tends to associate Hoxton Square more with floppy haircuts, detached irony and a generalised contempt for one’s fellow man than joy, happiness and so forth. But tonight, for one night only, the fog of bitter cynicism is emphatically swept away by the blissful indie-pop whirlwind of Shugo Tokumaru.

On first impression, you wouldn’t necessarily expect this Tokyo-based songwriter to be particularly engaging- he comes across as a shy character, perhaps a bit of a daydreamer. But with his two friends in tow, he creates a sound as beautiful as it is quirky; a exuberantly melodic broadside of classic pop songwriting somewhere between the Beatles and Mercury Rev, combined with the slightly off-kilter eccentricity Japanese bands tend to do so well.

Shugo is undoubtedly a skilled musician, his intricate, light-fingered guitar playing recalling the marvellous Dustin Wong, but his bandmates definitely deserve similar, if not equal kudos. Yumiko Hishinuma, the wonderfully stoic glockenspielist/accordion player/glove puppeteer/all-purpose purveyor of instrumental miscellany does an fine job recreating the myriad (literal) bells and whistles that are Tokumaru’s trademark, and the endearingly nerdy Yoshinari Kishida’s infectious enthusiasm is almost as enjoyable to witness as his drumming.

The live arrangements are also a marked step-up from their recorded incarnations. Shugo has the occasional tendency to overdo the twee on record, but tonight, everything sounds perfect, from the impossibly lovely ‘Katachi’ and twinkly whimsy of ‘Parachute,’ to his signature, ukulele-centric cover of ‘Video Killed The Radio Star.’

A near flawless performance from an ever-impressive talent, Shugo Tokumaru may not change the world, but he certainly makes it a better place.

Photograph by Sara Amroussi-Gilissen

The albums that stick with you, and I mean really stick with you, the one’s that become woven into the fabric of your very existence are often some of the most unassuming. More often that not, they enter your life under some magical circumstance, soundtracking it for months at a time and leaving an indelible mark on your memories. It is usually without warning they will seep into your consciousness evoking such strong emotional connections to a time, a place or a person that they can often be hard to return to.

One such album for me was Sam Amidon‘s 2008′s All Is Well. Ostensibly a reworking of traditional (mostly Appalachian) folk songs, the album possessed a rarified beauty in its fragility. Amidon’s voice breaks, the orchestra swells and the stories of heartbreak and loss unfold on an album so perfectly crafted in its arrangement and production would be, to my ears, impossible to follow up. In 2010 Amidon released I See the Sign. Markedly more immediate than its predecessor, it was a strong release yet it lacked the ineffable grace previously present.

Three years on and Vermont born Amidon is no longer recording with Reykjavik based collective Bedroom Community, but has moved to London to start a life with folk singer Beth Orton. Working with long time collaborator Thomas Bartlett (with who he recorded his first album) and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, this album tones down the lush orchestration and electronics of the previous two and instead brings out the more Jazz inspired elements of his work.

One of the many idiosyncrasies of Amidon’s past is his time spent studying under free-jazz violinist Leroy Jenkins and this influence can be very clearly heard in tracks such as ‘I Wish I Wish’ with it’s exploratory trumpet solo. That is not to say, however, that this is a Jazz record. There are certainly elements throughout but the strongest influence is still clearly his love of traditional music; the songs are performed with an almost reverential respect of the source material. Tracks such as the hypnagogic ‘Pharaoh’ and the beautiful title track showcase not only his love but his innate understanding of the appalachian vocal style. Each trill and warble evokes the beautiful but desolate landscapes from which most of these songs hail. On tracks such as ‘As I Roved Out’ and ‘Streets of Derry’, his playing (banjo and fiddle respectively) comes to the forefront and as with most of this album, is incredibly impressive.

While this album is by no means a huge leap forwards for Amidon (some could argue it’s a retreat to more familiar territory) , for me this is not a problem. What he does well here, and has always done well, is to embody traditional music; its harmony, its lyrical themes, and at the same time imbue the music with a vitality that never feels forced or disrespectful of its roots. Even the inclusion of a Mariah Carey cover (an unusual cover is commonplace on Amidon’s albums) doesn’t ever feel cheap or gimmicky and is handled with the same respect that makes this a truly sincere and beautiful album.

When we first heard Crystal Fighters‘ spirited foray into alt. dance with efforts like ‘Plage’ and ‘Champion Sound’, it was clear that we had something pretty special on our hands. The British/Spanish five piece spout youthful vigour, a penchant for sun-laced sounds and bounding pep of a puppy – even the most heartbreaking of their cuts is carried by a lightness and a golden haze.

Not only is their sound summer-bound, but it’s also insanely danceworthy – it’s the kind of organic club music that’s designed to soundtrack beach piss-ups in the sweltering heat, as you eat charred burgers and swill warm beer. They’ve got an original sonic identity that’s full of throbbing beats and luscious synths, but also the warmth of ukuleles and vocal richness.

Their debut, Star Of Love, polarised critics – some doled out 10/10s, others were keen to thrash them down. However, both camps saw potential in their sound, with many outlets patting them on the back for their original take on dance music and indie rock. They brought something to the table that wasn’t just fresh, but also amazing – apparently it was a concept record based on an opera “written by a man whose sanity disintegrated” before it could be finished. The LP was an engrossing combo of interweaving Basque folk and contemporary electronic music – and on the successor to Star Of Love, Cave Rave, we hear the familiar jangle of what made Crystal Fighters so fascinating in the beginning.

For Cave Rave, Crystal Fighters wanted to expand their horizons. They’ve brought in a host of authentic world instruments, like the txalaparta, the txistu and the Bolivian charango; they sought the wisdom of African musical icons and explored the sounds that cultures of the world have on offer, soaking in the variety, cherrypicking their favourite parts. There’s a notable Latin feel to the record (‘No Man’), there’s even some tribal percussion (‘LA Calling’). What has started to fade though, is their penchant for synths – this album careens away from the dance music aspect (as a genre) – but some efforts, like ‘Separator’ and ‘Are We One’ retain their techno streak, proudly showcasing pangs of dubstep and Calvin Harris pop hooks.

Other tracks, like the lead single ‘You & I’, eschew the synthetic. Sauntering through your speakers with the jauntiest ukulele intro you’ll ever hear, the track wears a splatter of reggae over straight-up indie-pop. With vocalist Sebastien Pringle’s adorable “I don’t need nothing else, no one else but you and I,” it’s plain to see that the cut is an ode to singular, relentless and all-encompassing love, told through tropical rhythms, backing vocals ripped from Lilo & Stitch and uplifting melodies. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more perfect summer tune. Opener ‘Wave’ features similar joie de vivre – it’s a sprawling paean of life and love, told via celestial guitars and atomic percussion.

Truthfully, for all of the global influences and toil, you barely even notice. There’s no time to pause and dissect the record, and just as you think there’s a gap to breathe, they drag you by the scruff of the neck and force your to grin and boogie. From start to finish, it’s a delirious pleasure, even if there’s a weak moment or slip in quality, you’re blind to it as their knack for eternal happiness and glorious melodies distract you. They’ve poured so much time and effort into Cave Rave – but you may never get a chance to appreciate that aspect of the album, because for all their intrinsic talent and informed attention to detail, their passion for pure pop is overpowering. It’s like someone trying to explain to you something in great detail at a party – it may be very interesting, but we’re sure you’d much rather just get another beer and dance like a loon.

There’s a lot to be said for solitude. Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle once told me about his writing process and being on tour and said the key was to spend as much time as he could on his own and then the songs would come.

Martin Crane, the man behind New York-via-Austin’s Brazos seems to have learned something similar in coming to write his band’s second album Saltwater, a follow-up to 2009′s promising debut Phosphorescent Blues; the themes of the record – isolation, solitude, the sea – formed after a move to NYC found Crane working on a 19^th century sail boat and reading Moby Dick.

So far, so “screenplay by Zach Braff”. But given that Melville’s book spoke to Crane, and that he found himself listening to music that shared the explorative tendencies of that tome, we should be thankful for the inspiration that’s resulted in the hook and harmony-heavy tracks on this album.

Recorded with a new drummer and bassist, Saltwater manages to combine – often to sparkling effect – indie-pop hookery with the aforementioned explorative music of Pharaoh Sanders, Can and Harmonia to come across as a kind of rambling, transcendental version of The Shins.

Given they’ve also toured with Grizzly Bear it’s also interesting to hear echoes of Daniel Rossen’s writing in Crane’s music, mainly in the freewheeling nature of the majority of the tracks. We begin practically mid-song in opening track ‘Always On’, as bright synths bounce along with a quasi-Afrobeat kick and a flamenco acoustic guitar flourish. With barely concealed glee, Crane sings “yes, I’m gonna love you til you’re real” and sounds like he’s in the business of creating a companion for himself out of his isolated imagination.

It rolls along unanchored, and is joined in the carefree ranks by ‘How The Ranks Was Won’; that track driven by a motorik chug reminiscent of American Analog Set’s late-career output and is an absolute winner. That’s followed by a pair of crackers: ‘One Note Pillow’ is a jazz-flecked odyssey drenched in echoed harmonies that’s definitely been a result of some time listening to Veckatimest, while ‘Valencia’ is, appropriately enough, a summery and playfully Spanish-tinged track.

Each listen makes any flaws in the record more elusive. There’s the lovely and sad waltz of ‘Deeper Feelings’, the stunning cyclical guitar lines of ‘Irene’ – essentially a jam but addictive thanks to Crane’s engagingly human voice – through to the title track which shares the same freewheelin’ spirit as the preceding track, and again Crane’s lyrics and voice are the star attraction. It’s also the most overtly “about the ocean” song on the record alongside ‘How The Ranks Was Won’, but really – do the themes or inspiration really matter when the tunes are this good?

Crane, along with new Brazos band members Spencer Zahn and Ian Chang, haven’t quite created “transcendental groove music” with Saltwater but as a difficult second album goes, this is a total breeze rather than a mainsail-battering ocean storm.

John Grant is an artist that inspires evangelism among his followers. You could see it when Midlake, self-confessed super-fans of Grant’s former band the Czars, coaxed him out of obscurity and into their studio to record his solo debut, Queen of Denmark.

It was apparent in the manner in which said album took off: there was a real, old-fashioned, word-of-mouth feel to its ascendency (living abroad at the time, I received various emails from people in the UK telling me I simply had to get my hands on his record). There’s the sell-out British tour and the fact that every time there’s a moment of silence in tonight’s jam-packed Shepherd’s Bush Empire, a gaggle of infatuated revellers will loudly declare their unconditional love for him. Throughout, I’m half expecting a pair of knickers to land at his feet, as he self-consciously shimmies his way through a stellar performance.

He emerges to the groan of a synthesizer that’s so sonorous, it feels like it’s coming from the bowels of the old Empire itself. The 4/4 backbeat to ‘You Don’t Have To’ ushers him toward the mic, the lights flickering fluorescent. New album Pale Green Ghosts is a departure, for sure, but it’s arguably not until you’ve seen him perform it live that you realise just how different he intended it to be. In a week dominated by the catfight over Daft Punk’s new record, the title track, performed to a mesmerising green light show, reminds us all what a great dance tune should sound like. The searing synth riff of ‘It Doesn’t Matter to Him’, too, bellow around the theatre: louder, dancier and bolder than you could ever have envisioned (although I’d hazard that anyone who’s heard it on this tour will only ever hear it this way again).

Grant’s gallows humour transcends both of his records and it’s to the fore tonight too. From the deadbeat anthem ‘Queen of Denmark’ to the goofy existentialism of ‘Sigourney Weaver’, Grant has a Vonnegut-esque ability to sugarcoat the most barbed and venomous couplets in comedy. Often, too, the melody Grant hangs the lyrics on is at odds with the content: Grant himself draws the comparison between ‘I Hate This Town’ (about depression and alienation) and Abba’s ‘Chiquitita’ (a slightly more trivial number about teenage heartbreak), before regaling us with his confusion over how the band’s Frida would clap as she performed live (of course, he had us all join in).

Between tracks, too, his patter has the power to thaw the most hardened hearts. ‘Ernest Borgnine’, he tells the audience, is about how he felt when he was diagnosed with HIV, before setting the audience off in laughter again with a joke and an anecdote about Borgnine, the hero he once got to meet.

“I hope you can feel this,” he tells the crowd, clasping at his heart as he takes leave of his encore. We can – everybody can. From the moment he introduces his Icelandic band and thanks the support act before singing a note, to the final moments of ‘Caramel’, this has been an extraordinary occasion marked by humility and warmth.

Over the past months, there’s been a hell of a lot lot written about Grant’s illness, his depression and his addictions. Tonight, though, has been about his remarkable ability to channel his many-headed demons into something positive and beautiful.

Photograph by Burak Cingi

Apparently it’s impossible to talk about Daft Punk without hyperbole. You can set aside all the praise coming from critics, as much as that confirms my point.

Just look at “The Collaborators” video series about the making of the pair’s new record, Random Access Memories, and you’ll find the artists themselves tripping over each other to make the most exaggerated assertions. Todd Edwards claims that he moved from New Jersey to L.A. because of the recording sessions. Chilly Gonzales states that he doesn’t usually like to collaborate, but made an exception for “people who are in possession of some true key to the zeitgeist.” DJ Falcon simply stated that, “For me, they never disappoint.”

But perhaps the most hyperbolic statement about this album is also the simplest: that every hyperbolic statement may all be true. Daft Punk have not only made a career-defining album, but the smartest dance album since disco. Which makes sense, not only because Memories is a disco record, but also because disco was the precursor to EDM. Aside from the vocoder’ed vocals, you’d be hard-pressed (at least, on the surface) to believe this album came from the same guys who created the ecstasy-filled ‘One More Time.’

But then again, this is Daft Punk we’re talking about – the group that never does the same thing twice and rarely follows trends. Naturally, if EDM is what’s de rigueur, then Daft Punk can’t make an EDM record. Even if they’re the reason that, say, Skrillex has a career. No, not for Daft Punk. Electronic dance music is who they were. Throwing out  the samples (apart from album-closer ‘Contact’), recording on analog and bringing in Nile Rodgers to play guitar, Nathan East to play bass and J.R. Robinson to play drums – the duo go backwards in order to move forwards, and make a statement.

Two androids made dance music with emotion, basically. But they’re still robots, meaning that this music is as meticulous, as precise and fed through as much calculus as anything the Daft Punk have released. Now, this may seem odd if you consider the French duo’s comments about how dehumanized the process of making music has become. Such modern studio perfectionists as Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter are forced to use computers in order to find the perfect sounds, and the duo has admitted as much. That said, computers aren’t the basis for composition. They aren’t an instrument, they are a tool.

Just one tool used in the making – “crafting” might be a better term – of this album. ‘Giorgio by Moroder,’ for example, is a nine-minute, multi-part suite that opens with a spoken-word intro by the titular Italian legend and closes with a paranoid guitar solo before fizzling into a bath of feed-back. In between you’ll find: a synthesizer making concentric circles around a sparse rhythm section, two different breakdowns (a short, jazzy outing and a percussion freak-out), orchestration and a second spoken word part. Is it over the top? Yes. Self-indulgent? Or course. Insists upon its self-importance? Absolutely. Features entire portions that are unnecessary? No question. And that’s the point, and why it works. In effect, Daft Punk have made a dance record that comments on the imperfect nature of humanity. In the case of ‘Giorgio,’ the observation is that sometimes life is frivolous, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun or surprising.

So, in other words, Random Access Memories is as much a progressive rock record as it is a disco record. Well, Daft Punk’s version of disco, anyway. Attentive listeners will discover that beneath this disco-based album lie shades of trap music drizzled over ‘Doin’ It Right,’ jazz fusion injected into ‘Motherboard’ and ‘Contact,’ and even AOR rolled into ‘Fragments of Time.’ None of it shouldn’t work. Combining progressive music with disco is by itself a tough order, and that’s especially true if you add any of the above ingredients. But Daft Punk make something work that shouldn’t because they’ve always been about the road less traveled.

This explains why on Memories, they had someone other than themselves sing into a vocoder. The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas appears on the synth-pop gem ‘Instant Crush’ with his voice filtered through their signature style, something that initially feels profane. No one sings into a vocoder! It’s practically been their trademark for two decades! But it works with Casablancas because the song’s about being frustrated by a relationship. “Now I thought about what I wanna say/ But I never really know where to go,” he sings over a tumbling melody. “So I chained myself to a friend/ ‘Cause I know it unlocks like a door.” Casablancas simply sounds reluctant to accept how perplexing life can be, especially regarding relationships. The vocoder, then, acts as a way to fully demonstrate how bemused he is. That he’s is the only guest whose vocals get this treatment suggests a mistake, one that precariously sticks out. It’s the kind of song you’d record assuming it’ll be a b-side. But to these robots, it makes perfect sense do something seemingly blasphemous and put it on an album. They wouldn’t be who they are otherwise.

It’s the same reason they had Paul Williams sing on ‘Touch,’ the assumed centerpiece of the record. A full-blown space rock ballad featuring a samba detour in the middle, it’s a track that, upon hearing, caused a fellow critic to remark Williams was a bad choice, as he lacks “the gravitas to pull it off.” That may be true, but may have also been the goal. Here, Daft Punk are going for groove, for living in the moment, and for blemishes. So, yeah, they could’ve used a superstar like David Bowie, but it wouldn’t fit. The robotic duo went slightly under the radar in service to a song that, lyrically, is simultaneously the most and least human thing Daft Punk have ever been a part of. “Sweet touch/ You’ve almost convinced me I’m real/ I need something more,” Williams sings over the somber piano coda. It’s beautiful and sad.

There’s that dichotomy, again: Robots making songs about feeling. Even when they make the perfect summer song, it’s got a pessimistic underbelly. ‘Get Lucky,’ featuring Pharrell Williams, is the breeziest thing Daft Punk have ever made. The itchy slink of Nile Rodgers’ guitar suggests a wonderful sunset that never ends. Yet, Williams sings of two people that aren’t exactly in sync with each other: “She’s up all night t’ill the sun/ I’m up all night to get some/ She’s up all night for good fun/ I’m up all night to get lucky.” Pharrell was quick to point out the meaning of the song goes beyond sex, but even if it isn’t, the boy and girl are clearly on different wavelengths. To the guy, the sparks aren’t there and result is disappointment. But he isn’t leaving: “ We’ve come too far/ To give up who we are.”

Album closer ‘Contact’ opens with audio from the Apollo 17 mission over the cautiously optimistic synth from The Sherb’s ‘We Right Tonight.’ The immediacy of the song is then thrust forward when the song begins its sprint as more and more synths are piled on each other. Omar Hakim’s drums stumble over themselves as they dash alongside. Suddenly, everything bleeds together into a sonic haze and begins an ascent straight for the sun. Pulses quicken. Then…it fizzles out in an anti-climax and the album is over.

Which is just another way for Daft Punk to comment on being letdown. This album is a perfectly imperfect vision of humanity as seen by two androids. It’s not cynical or calculating like a robot might view it but it isn’t cheery, either. Even when they sing optimistically about music and life, there’s a hint of inhuman over-simplicity: “Let the music of your life/ Give life back to music.”

Yet, as Todd Edwards observed, it’s somehow a robot duo that is ironically “bringing soul back to music.” Edwards sings lead on ‘Fragments of Time,’ the record’s most human song. Juxtaposed to a busy AOR arrangement, he speaks of being content even if that means siphoning off happiness from memories – be they real or digital. It’s this seemingly stark contrast that colours all of Daft Punk’s work. Despite the level of fastidiousness that’s standard to Daft Punk, Random Access Memories still sounds loose. The album doesn’t feel synthetic or disingenuous, as it perhaps should. So perhaps these two are cooler than anyone you know. Perhaps they are the cultural apotheosis everyone’s in awe of. Then again, to create music of this calibre, perhaps they really are two robots from another planet.

Attention spans, huh? Boring! There’s a certain type of indiepop collective that sees fit to adopt a ‘kitchen sink’ approach to instrumentation and arrangement, as likely to draw from the cutesiest of fey pop as it is to draw from what The Waterboys dubbed ‘the big music’. You know the types: Bearsuit. Architecture In Helsinki. Los Campesinos! Bands who’ll veer from lo-fi jauntiness to mini-Arcade Fires to nonsensical electro within the space of a single verse.

To that list you can add Kill Rock Stars’ own Boats, a five-piece from Winnipeg with more ideas than is really fair. Like the aforementioned acts, their capacity for concentration is small. They’d rather drag songs backwards through hedges than bother with anything as deathly dull as revisiting a verse or chorus. An odd bunch? First impressions of third LP A Fairway Full Of Miners suggest that’s the case.

Much of this is down to head honcho Mat Klachefsky’s frankly bizarre voice – a strangulated, high-pitched yap that scratches eardrums like Wallace Shawn ingesting helium as a cure for laryngitis. Opening toe-tapper ‘Animated GIFs’ sees him wistfully advising us to “never ever change your font size,” shortly before a demented breakdown proclaims: “O frothy eater of sandwiches! Laminated hands will command you!” In short, it’s a little difficult to get a handle on his subject matter, although there’s an engaging quality to his delivery that makes him worth sticking with.

The rest of the band work more cohesively, applying mob shouts and sunny pop ‘oohs’ to the ADD-riddled backing. A chest-swelling trumpet line props up ‘Great Skulls’, while knackered old synths power the scrupulous power-chug of ‘Sad Legs’, and ‘Advice On Bioluminescent Bears’ features the soft tones of the glockenspiel – the indiepoppers’ traditional weapon of choice. Meanwhile climaxes and codas appear from nowhere, allowing individual tracks to flow powerfully and endearingly into realms that seem far from their starting points.

The dense attack of their melodies make for a somewhat heady brew – a little too rich to fully absorb on first listen, perhaps – and for all the expansive nature of their songs, Boats are far from genre-hoppers: it all sounds most assuredly like indie. But then again, they’re never going to be world-beaters; the only thing they seek to dominate is the madcap universe inside their collective imagination. And there they sit: rulers of all they survey. Oligarchs of delightfully batshit guitar pop. It’s worth paying ‘em a visit.

When Baths debut Cerulean emerged in 2010, Will Wiesenfeld was bracketed with L.A beat scene artists like Flying Lotus and Nosaj Thing, but he always had a spark of something different about him. His sound mixed deep saturated beats with wistful samples and falsetto vocals that imbued a sadness to the record, one which seemed more human and much less exhausting to listen to than those peers. This second album only serves to highlight the superficiality of those previous associations, as Obsidian is a casually accessible but black-hearted collection which he has called his “weird version of a pop record”.

The songs here are definitely more immediate than on Cerulean but they’re no less intricately constructed, with repeat listens teasing out several layers of little auditory oddities. The hooks on ‘Miasma Sky’ mask a meandering almost jazz like structure and distract from the wealth of ambient details that percolate throughout. ‘Ironworks’ is a gorgeous number on which Wiesenfeld croons a brewing storm over lilting piano keys and sepia strings whilst softly strewn beats jostle for position underneath. On tracks like this one and ‘No Past Lives’ his classical training really becomes apparent by its juxtaposition with more thoroughly modernist production. The opening four tracks of Obsidian are quite unstoppable though, striking a perfect middle ground of such technical vivification and a tone of heart-on-sleeve introspection.

There is a definite mid-point lull though as the sex-obsessed but oddly sexless pairing of ‘Incompatible’ and ‘No Eyes’ serve up some disconcertingly trite lyrics with little to compensate musically, other than the brilliantly noisy coda that drowns the latter track in more palpable aggression. It’s a surprisingly isolated burst of volume as well (matched only be the NIN like stomp of ‘Earth Death’) considering that much of the album was written following a debilitating bacterial infection which rendered Wiesenfeld unable to do much of anything for several months, and its dense claustrophobic atmosphere feels like an expulsion of pent-up negativity.

It is a dark cloud of an album for sure, as a glance at the song titles suggest, and his moribund lyrics throughout are occupied with death and decay often to a point of overkill. Instrumental closing track ‘Inter’ lifts that cloud though with a haunting romance, an atmosphere which feels eerily similar to Donnie and Joe Emerson’s indie-movie favourite ‘Baby’. It channels a quiet loneliness which is detached from the buzzing anxiety of the rest of the album, a snapshot of something simpler and optimistic.

Twisted, beautiful and introspectively bleak, Obsidian has a lot of qualities which I expect will keep me coming back to it, but it feels lacking as well. Its emotions are strangely impenetrable, because for all it sounds like an emotional record on surface the more you sink into it the more it seems only like the outline of one. His falsetto wavers and his wordless harmonies cast shapeless rain clouds while noises bubble and burst in the vicinity but it’s difficult to feel anything specific toward most of the songs beyond a superficial level.

It’s perhaps ironically this which makes it a “weird pop record”, its surface. There’s no denying the technical ability and songcraft is there, and unpicking the layers is the most enjoyable part of listening, but it’s emotional tugging ultimately strikes as hollow, not through insincerity but in being too obfuscated or overbearing for me to really love these songs. Wiesenfeld’s lyrical talents are yet to routinely manifest the same subtlety as his composition, but there is enough here to suggest that he is definitely capable of closing the gap.

I’m sat in the stalls of the Barbican Hall, at the end of what’s been an evening of beautiful, challenging music. Timo Andres is sat straight up at the piano in a rococo beige suit, his head back and his long arms stretched out before him, playing out the last bars of Philip Glass’s Etudes for Piano.

My mind wanders to an evening spent watching renegade concert pianist Chilly Gonzalez a few weeks back in the Cadogan Hall, during which he tried to dispel the idea that the piano was an unconquerable instrument. There were postcards being sold on the merch desk proclaiming that a monkey playing a note is no different to Tchaikovsky playing the same one, or something to that effect.

As entertaining as Gonzalez is – and his possibly faux reverse snobbery shtick is a joy to behold – he is wrong. Andres has just replaced Nico Muhly at the keys, who himself was preceded by Philip Glass. In some baton-passing way, the sequencing feels symbolic. From the master, to the protégée, to the (outside of classical circles) relatively unknown. All three are playing pieces from the same movement, but each emblazons his own contribution with a personalised stamp.

Glass (in a straightforward navy cardigan, naturally) carries an air of unaffected normality. I’d recently watched a rerun of the stellar Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts – a documentary tracing his journey from avant-garde nihilist of the Lower East Side to toast of Carnegie Hall. All the way through, the man was unflappably normal. The day after Einstein on the Beach opened at the Metropolitan Opera, the , er, broke Glass was driving a taxi around New York City when a passenger leaned forward to tell him that he had the same name as a “very famous composer”. He plays his pieces coldly – scientifically, Gonzalez might say. Etudes is not difficult to enjoy. Perhaps the reason Glass has enjoyed so much crossover success is that you don’t have to look too hard, to listen too deep, to find the crux of the melody, and his style is as minimalistic as the music itself.

Muhly, by contrast, is altogether more involved. He leans – dives – into the music, contorting his body with each lift and fall. His head bobs forwards and back, the sweat glistening on the side of his face. A Scream and an Outrage is his baby and by the end of his performance of Etudes, he is emotional and drained. He snatches the music from its holder and bows, fulsomely. The calibre and breadth of performers he’s gathered for the weekend is testament to his own chameleonic ways. Conor O’Brien of Villagers is nodding in approval a few rows in front of me, and earlier in the evening we’d had our hearts ripped from their cages and served still beating on a plate by Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond’s performance of the impeccable death speaks by David Lang.

Twenty-something Andres is a hybrid of his predecessors, at least stylistically. He, too, evokes something scientific – his bowtie and muffin hair suggest that if he were to speak (which he doesn’t), he might ask us to tell him about our childhoods. He’s not as distant as Glass, but nowhere near as intense as Muhly. Glass played from memory, Muhly from manuscript and for Andres, there’s an iPad sat on the rack, emitting a dim, tinny light that’s drowning in the face of the grandness that surrounds it. His long fingers arguably coax more elegance from his pieces than the others and his style is more playful.

As the three align to take their applause, I recall Gonzalez and his ersatz philosophy again. While Glass, I’m sure, would never claim to be a “musical genius” (Gonzalez’s words), there’s something interesting about the way in which each has struck out from the “world of serious music” (Glass’s). But as he homes in on 80, Philip Glass is still producing music which can be interpreted and reinterpreted ad infinitum, which challenges and thrills and which finds new territory and pulls new life from the same set of parameters he was given 60 years ago. That, to me, is something marvellous.

Photograph by Sebastien Dehesdin

The reason that Primal Scream have been one of the most compelling bands of the last 25 years is entirely down to their being one of the least reliable. Listening to any new Primal Scream album seems rooted more in trepidation than excitement. As a true student of rock and roll – and someone who seems to love every revolutionary piece of music he hears – Bobby Gillespie simply can’t seem to tell what he is and isn’t good at.

Hence, his band have never had anything longer than a run of two great albums at a time and, when you think about it, there isn’t really a Primal Scream Sound. After pretty much predicting the last decade with the unimpeachable XTRMNTR, the slide into mediocrity has been slow and painful, either through increasingly bland rehashes of former glories, or Riot City Blues, a blooze-rock record that makes everything the Stones put out in the eighties sound like Exile on Main Street.

So, on paper, More Light seems poised to change that – albeit in a relatively regressive way. Their most interesting collaborators all stop by – Andy Wetherall, Kevin Shields and David Holmes – and the ever-touted “return to form” seems predicated on it being a XTRMNTR for the 2010s. Politico-cultural commentary? Check, including two references to Thatcher and Guy Debord in the first three songs. Dense, bleak soundscapes? You got it. Bobby G trying his hand at rapping again? Shudder. Yup. That’s here too. In fact, at 13 tracks in 68 minutes (and with a member of the band on the cover of the album for the first time since the eighties - Bobby G, obviously), Primal Scream sound genuinely determined to prove themselves for the first time in ages.

And guess what? Some of that effort pays off, just not always in the ways you’d expect. Sure, there’s the relentless gonzo rock and roll euphoria of ‘Hit Void’ – More Light‘s worthiest successor to anything on XTRMNTR - but it’s the more spacious moments of the album that really pay off. Most promising of the bunch is ‘Walking With the Beast’, the best ballad the Primals have conjured since ‘Keep Your Dreams’. A loving tribute to (read: straight-up rip-off of) the third Velvets album, it’s all muted twang and hushed strums, while the lyrics are unashamedly pulled straight out of the class of ’69.

Similarly, the intricate acoustic psychedelics of ‘River of Pain’  and ‘Goodbye Johnny’ – on which Gillespie actually croons – sounds like Lee Hazelwood by way of a David Lynch soundtrack, suggests that there’s the kernel of a sound that the band are hitting upon waiting to be properly explored.

Unfortunately, it’s simply not to be, at least not here, and these more reflective moments are caught up in an all-too-similar tidal wave of the kind of self-important bluster you’d hope Bobby and co would have outgrown by now. While there’s nothing quite at the ‘Suicide Sally and Johnny Guitar’ level of awful, the ungodly trip-hop-hip-hop-post-punk-gospel nonsense of ‘Culturecide’ and ’2013”s opening saxophonic Krautrush (which, lyrically, is part curious time-capsule, part embarrassing politics lesson) veer dangerously close. Meanwhile, the just-plain-boring stretch of tracks from ‘Sideman’ to ‘Relativity’ sounds a hell of a lot less subversive than it obviously thinks it does.

At its best, More Light shows that even this far into the game, Primal Scream still have some aces up their sleeve. Unfortunately, the rest of the time, it’s the sonic equivalent of the moment in Almost Famous when its fictional band’s lead singer petulantly insists “I’m incendiary too!” There’s too much telling and not enough showing across More Light‘s 70 minutes, and while its most impressive moments clearly see the band give out, another flickeringly interesting record dominated by pseudo-revolutionary scattershot sloganeering and half-baked riffery suggests they may well do better to just give up.

Far from winding things down our last day in Brighton for The Great Escape Festival is packed with incredible artists, Dan Carson and George O’Brien catch sets from Mausi, Wall, YADi and Lulu James.

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

Mausi have come on leaps and bounds of late. Daisy downing tools – or bass, whatever – and moving front and centre has really beefed up their stage presence. Now she’s no longer constrained by keeping time strapped to her instrument; she plays the part of hyperactive cheer girl beautifully, bounding across the stage and encouraging awkward dancemoves. Backed with synths courtesy of her brother Thomas, whose vocal contributions have been pared back a little it seems, plus padding drumbeats and pogoing bass; Mausi have hit their stride as a live band.

Even the visuals have a super-sleek feel now. Shots of gorgeous guys and girls wandering sun-kissed boulevards knit delightfully with the likes of ‘sol.’ and closing track ‘My Friend Has A Swimming Pool’. Their hyperactive Tangfastic pop can come across a little cloying over the radio but in the flesh it’s actually pretty hair-raising. The latter song in particular is a bona fide, box-ticking slab of pop bombast with a brilliantly daft vocal hook and sheets of pirouetting synthesizer. It’s all come together: tighter, sharper, faster. DC

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

Soundtracking our late Saturday morning, Dan Croll is his typically fun-filled, energetic self, as a bursting downstairs Komedia is treated to an uplifting set of genuine pop hits. The five Liverpool lads are devilishly tight, considering the relatively new set-up and it is a completely pro-sounding set the highlights of which are made up from the spirit-raising latest single ‘Compliment Your Soul’ and his first attention-grabbing track ‘From Nowhere’. The jangling open chords of ‘Home’ wrap things up, as our final day in Brighton gets off to the best possible start – real weekend favourite.  GB

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

Another exciting young UK singer-songwrter followed-up at Komedia; the gentle hue of Wall sounds gorgeous in the Brighton basement. Her hushed, delicate vocal is married with ticking manufactured beats and deliberate and careful punctuation from a warm guitar. ‘Magazine’ remains a real highlight, and feels particularly poignant by the sea, given it’s relevant wording, while ‘Left To Wonder’ is genuinely  touching. The London three are magical. GB

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

Norway’s Farao makes the best of the cold hard daylight at Festival Hub. Until now it’s been easy hiding away in the gloom, nursing our bruised last-day-at-a-festival bodies but we’re exposed and out in the open now. Mercifully Kari Johansen’s rustic little ditties offer up a pretty lovely remedy. There’s a warmth glow at the very heart of these earthy alt-folk Scandi-pop songs. Although it’s a measured, careful performance, the sweet little cooing between Kari and her live keyboardist cradles sensitively, it’d be great to see more interplay between the two in the future. DC

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

We caught Chlöe’s show up in Newcastle a matter of weeks ago and the thing that really stuck out was her ability to take the shape and sound of the room in her stride and make it work. That hollowed out former warehouse – with its shipping container vibe – became a playground for her edgy, pin-sharp pop stylings and it’s a similar situation here at Blind Tiger.

Making these kind of vibrant, precisely executed tracks work – capturing the joy and the vitality – in a live setting doesn’t come naturally to all artists; but my word does she make it look like a walk in the park. It engages more than many other emerging, buzzy pop shows; ‘No Strings’ is typically peppy but she’s also keen to drop down and experiment with more mellow sonics. ‘I Wish I Could Tell You’ serves as a bittersweet aperitif to the sugared vocal hooks and spritely melodies.

You hear it regurgitated over and over, ‘she’s only 18’ but that really doesn’t illustrate how impressive this all is. She wrote these songs and she’s now translating it with striking finesse on the live circuit. Just go see her. DC

The Toronto three-piece kicked-off our evening, offering-up their enticing mix of early 80s-sounding pop rock. It’s quirky and fun and, thanks to the cute, catching vocal, it is somewhat seductive. Awash with layers of warm synths and glimmers of dancing drums the performance feels exciting and certainly noteworthy, in as much as you’re left wanting more, which Diana have promised with a new Jagjaguar record on the horizon.GB

Newcastle’s bundle of energy and excitement, Lulu James smashes through her super cool set, stomping around the Digital stage in some typically garish attire. She’s the finished article now, thanks to the ease of ‘Sweetest Thing’, the garage-like ‘Closer’ and her hugely impressive vocal that sounds as fluid and natural live as it does on record. Endearing humour between songs fills the seafront venue with smiles, and the effortlessly charismatic Geordie really gets the evening off to the perfect start. GB

A real electro-pop pace-setter, Copenhagen’s edgy Karen Marie Ørsted delivers one of the weekend’s highlights; with her perfect levels of attitude and angst, MØ sits somewhere between Grimes and Robyn, and powerful tracks like ‘Pilgrim’ and the new ‘Waste Of Time’ sound sultry and genuinely enormous. Bone-shuddering bass thunders out underneath her distinctive, languid vocal and glistening guitar riffs. Punching the air and chucking herself about, she is captivating and we really can’t take your eyes of this one.   GB

Wrapping-up the pretty special Digital line-up, Glasgow synth-poppers CHVRCHES entertained a packed crowd, utilising their booming electronic lines underneath a chillingly striking vocal. ‘Lies’ and ‘Mother We Share’ are two of the most memorable numbers from the set, and indeed the weekend; futuristic, thunderous, with hints of retro, they sound immaculate and help to prove why so many turn out for the show. They make a big, big sound and it really was everything we hoped for. GB

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

Emerging London vocalist YADi warns her live drummer, Chris,that “he’s got his work cut out tonight” shortly after she emerges on stage at The Blind Tiger. She’s not wrong either; his springy backbeats – urgent but wholly controlled – provide the ideal cushion for her sultry, expressive tones. ‘Guillotine’ chops rippling piano chords together with snappy, pitter-patter percussion; her cool collected voice swelling into the refrain ‘like a queen, I can make you love me’, repeated over and over. There’s sass and bite to the starlet’s sound which keeps things from slipping into the realms of electro-pop tweeness; even a mistakenly repeated intro doesn’t phase her one bit, shrugging ‘this is just the remix version!’ YADi is quickly becoming our new go-to girl for smart, sexy future-pop. DC

Lead photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

If yesterday was the warm-up leg then today was the real deal: Dan Carson and George O’Brien ran around Brighton so you didn’t have to.

Brolin

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

Brolin absolutely flew through a Double Denim-curated set above a pub to kick-off day two. The loft room played host to a decent-sized crowd as the masked producer filled the stuffy attic with his cooling tones.

With just drums and a voice, it is a simple set-up, but, particularly the later songs like ‘NYC’ and his closer ‘Reykjavik;’ embrace their pop-like nature. The blend of manufactured and actual drums simmer through the tiny room, while his chilling vocal leads proceedings. There is something about Brolin that is lacking in his contemporaries, we’re not quite sure what it is, maybe it’s hidden underneath that mask of his.GB

Empress Of

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

The Brooklyn based ambient singer sights “X-files, Fresh Prince of Bel Air (seasons 1-3 with the original aunt viv)” as her influences and her set is as sought-after as a reformed Will Smith show, as punters line the stairs of the Fitzherberts bar.

Her first ever UK show is massively captivating; dreamy vocals lead the way, while heady, manufactured synths pound through. She is captivating, in terms of her obvious excitement to be playing in Brighton and her energy and intensity is completely endearing – ‘Hat Trick’ is a really memorable moment.GB

San Zhi

Gorgeously soft pop rock washes the Unitarian Church for Best Fit’s own stage, as UK five-piece San Zhi flood the busy venue with their heady combination of FX-heavy guitar and warm synth lines.

‘Ice Light’ stands out, as well as an ambiguous track with their best riff; unclear whether it is a Lauren Hill number, the band contradict themselves explaining who wrote it but ownership becomes irrelevant as soon as the piano line kicks-off. A crackling mini megaphone adds depth to the already intriguing vocal and it is an entirely dreamy set from the exciting group.GB

Josef Salvat

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

Hotly-tipped London-based Aussie, Joesf Salvat married his clear knack for songwriting with intensity and verve, as the evening closed-in at the Best Fit stage in Brighton.

Filling a veritable gap in the market, it is so refreshing to see a male singer, with a proper catalogue of hits, losing himself in honesty and pouring out a distinctive vocal. ‘This Life’ and ‘Hustler’ stand-out are undoubtedly highlights and give it time, and a band around him, this set could be genuinely breath-taking thanks to the quality of the tracks already in place.GB

Luke Sital-Singh

It would be a real challenge to see a better voice over this jam-packed weekend. The church setting couldn’t be better suited for the North London raconteur, as his powerful, but wonderfully controlled vocal screams out over the pews.

‘Bottled Up Tight’ is the set’s hit single, in a show filled with emotion and wonderful melancholy. There are middle-aged men in actual tears, captivated and shocked by the equal rawness and delicacy of his voice. Endearing, dry humour breaks-up this intensity, and it is a set filled with assurance from the very best ‘man and his guitar’ around – stunning.GB

Mykki Blanco

‘Dontcha just love a good showcase?’ hoots a seriously pumped up Mykki Blanco when she arrives front and centre, downstairs at Audio. The American rapper holds each and every one of us in the palm of her hand, negotiating the crunching beats and coronary-inducing bass throbs with deadly verve. Her live DJ – aided by the venue’s impeccable soundsystem – keeps things broiling over nicely with sinister, industrial oscillations but Mykki actually shines brightest when the backbeat drops out entirely. Writhing across the front row, cooing Marilyn Monroe quotes and glugging away at bottles of beer; even the deftest flick of her wrist commands total attention. The most enthralling show we’ve seen thus far; we expected nothing less to be honest.DC

Ewert and the Two Dragons

Photograph by Andrew Novell

It’s a capacity crowd at the beautiful but tiny Prince Albert pub for the much-talked about Estonian four-piece’s first performance of the festival. With the entry being co-ordinated on a ‘tall guys at the back’ basis, we can just about catch a glimpse of the band as they gently pad their way through a set punctuated by tinkling xylophones, bounding kick drum and sweetly whispering guitar lines. Totally worth the long uphill slog from the seafront. DC

Tourist

Following the neurotic rhyming and pulsing beats of Mykki Blanco was always going to be a tough task but London-based producer Tourist makes a strong fist of the mammoth task regardless. For those capable of concentrating on anything other than Blanco’s batshit mental dance moves; Brighton’s own William Phillips turns in a pretty energetic showing from behind his array of Midi controllers and synths. Whipping his hometown crowd into a fervour with a potent blend of swarming 2 step and mellow house; Phillips’ frothy vocal loops, skittish beats and bubbling bass are a match made in heaven for the suitably loosened-up dance-floor.DC

Rainy Milo

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

Coalition’s got a really nice buzz going ahead of Rainy Milo’s late show. The South Londoner emerges and takes the howling, well-oiled crowd in the palm of her hand from the moment she brings the mic to her lips. She mightn’t yet feel fully confident in her own skin but the youngster’s silken, soulful tones speak for themselves. Bobbing her way through cuts from 2012 breakthrough EP, Limey, Rainy handles both delicate melancholy and ballsy, bassy future-pop with charm and grace. It’s by no means perfect but her sugared lilt alone keeps the future looking blindingly bright.DC

Lead photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

Dan Carson and George O’Brien ignore temptations to do nothing but sit on the beach all day in the Brighton sunshine and bring us an account of some incredible performances from the first day of this year’s Great Escape Festival.

Chasing Grace

Recent Island signing Chasing Grace kicked our weekend off with an early performance at The Hope. The British four piece conjure-up a light-hearted blend of folk and emotional pop with glimmers of heaviness, that is arguably too shackled. There is no doubt it’s early days in terms of live performance though and they soon warm into their set with tracks like ‘Bullet’ and particular highlight ‘Trust’. A Live Lounge-esque cover of ‘White Noise’ shows intelligence, while the quality of their voices stand them in good stead. They’re not quite ready but undoubtedly a decent future lies ahead. GB

Honeyblood

Photograph by Andrew Novell

The darkness of the Dome Studio played host to some pure punk-pop from Scottish duo Honeyblood, as Brighton was bathed in sun. Their simple setup of crunchy Telecaster power chords and splashing drums sound so much bigger than they appear, while Howling Bells-like vocals help carry the performance. GB

Holy Esque

Photograph by Andrew Novell

More punchy scuzz followed-up, as fellow-Scotts Holy Esque soundtracked our Thursday lunchtime. The quartet deliver controlled angst, with a quivering lead vocal rasping out over the top of some genuinely bone-shaking synth bass and relentless top-end riffs, that at times echo the heavier moments of Editors. The performance feels polished and brilliantly professional, the voice grabbing attention above all else, and the closing track ‘St.’ is desperately brilliant. It’s accessible aggression and very, very watchable. GB

Glass Animals

Photograph by Andrew Novell

A delay to scheduling at Digital seems to leave Oxford four-piece, Glass Animals, feeling somewhat jarred and disjointed initially. It certainly takes them a few minutes to find their groove amidst the shroud of smoke and aqueous atmosphere. Although they’re wedged into an early-ish slot on the bill, their occultish soundscapes – formed of whining samples and softly kissed hi-hats – manage to precipitate a kind of trancelike shuffling amongst the assembled fans. ‘Dust In Your Pocket’ broods and bubbles and threatens to boil over, all flitting synth arpeggios, seedy finger clicking and creeping whispers; it’s the highlight of a set stuffed with primal delights. DC

London Grammar

One of the most anticipated performances of the day came from the fast-rising London Grammar. A wonderfully lavish church provides the ideal setting for their sound, filled with emotion and lead by one of the most striking voices you’re likely to hear.

With the makeshift pews at bursting point, the three young Londoners seize the crowd’s attention; ‘Wasting My Young Years’ feeling completely like the hit single it is. The real drums that kick in when ‘Metal and Dust’ starts, turning a good sounding live track into something genuinely spine-tingling. They can do it live, and that’s what confirms them as one of the UK’s most exciting new bands. GB

Syron

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

The clue’s in the name with this London garage diva. A Best Fit favourite, Syron is responsible for some of the most exciting garage-fuelled tracks to surface in the last 12 months. Dominating the Audio stage with her trademark, extravagant appearance, her live set has grown, allowing her to slip seamlessly between songs, with carefully thought-out backing tracks. Her comfort and energy on stage is genuinely eye-catching and with chart-ready hits like ‘Breaking’ and ‘Here’, there’s no doubt she is the absolute complete package. GB

Mac DeMarco

‘We’re from Montreal, welcome to the rock show baby’. Hello indeed Mr. Mac Demarco. Looking like a quartet of roughnecks time-warped in from an 80’s truck stop, he and his band might seem a little marooned front and centre in the cavernous Corn Exchange but that doesn’t hinder them from delivering an essential collection of tuned-down romantic slacker-rock gems.

Surfy up-tempo toms roll with intricately woven bass and impeccable three-way harmonies, Mac blithely jamming away on his guitar, tongue lolling out through the feel-good bridges. ‘Rock n Roll Nightclub’ provides the biggest thrill of the set. Pounding floor toms and swooning leads are punctuated by Mac’s bassist’s frankly mental backing vox. Honest and self-deprecating throughout; even the room’s sternest critics struggle to withhold a slight grin. DC

Merchandise

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk

The Tampa trio – plus their live drummer – are probably better suited to diners and dive bars where their punchy post-punk rhythms hug the sweat-stained ceiling, rather than flutter away, as in the case of tonight’s somewhat ‘airy’ venue. The Corn Exchange is barely at half capacity but Merchandise perform as if they’re facing a crowd of 10,000. Oozing charisma, vocalist Carson Cox lets rip with his disillusioned croon on ‘Time’. Bruised yet comforting, he wags a cautionary finger between the gristly guitar breaks and thunderous toms and snare. Romance and recklessness entwined; Merchandise are living proof that falling in love will only ever end in tears. DC

Phantom

Hanna Toivonen and Tommi Koskinen aren’t your archetypal Scandi-pop duo. Though they retain that innate command over big, bold hooks; they also wield the power to drop down a key and roll out some wonderfully expansive, elegiac sprawls. Tonight they exercise both capabilities in perfect synch. A hooded Tommi arches over a huge, homemade Midi controller – Hanna dubs it ‘The UFO’ and suggests we check out its Facebook page – laying down the bristling, crunchy beats to which Hanna’s spidery coo attaches.

Bon Iver’s ‘Skinny Love’ is morphed into a rapturous electro-pop call to arms while ‘Kisses’ sounds typically euphoric; Tommi and Hanna’s billowing limbs casting playful shadows on the backdrop of cascading CGI images. Dipping into a host of genres with thick dubby bass drops, haunting post-rock synth swells and tonnes of pop sensitivity, Phantom’s confident little intricacies suggest they’ve got what it takes to mix it with the genre’s heavyweights. DC

Blue Hawaii

Photograph by Andrew Novell

The Brighthelm Centre could easily be mistaken for a temporary disaster relief building. There’s flagging bodies strewn across the floor as Montreal duo Blue Hawaii appear. They promise to ‘take it slow, then speed’ up, giving us a chance to catch our breath after a long day pounding the concrete. Shoulder-to-shoulder, Alex twirls over a switchboard of samplers and synths while Raphaelle trills spookily in the gaps between his echoing beats. Their padding cowbells and prowling bass oscillations prove the ultimate tonic for sore limbs and fuzzy senses.

Come back tomorrow for more coverage from Brighton’s Great Escape Festival.

Lead photograph by Andrew Novell

“Re-Mit is going to absolutely terrify people. It’s quite horrible. The Fall have had enough and we’re coming for you,” announced Mark E. Smith in a recent interview. It was inevitable, of course, that this would provoke the assumption that Re-Mit was going to be a formidable continuation of the widely deplored Ersatz GB. But as the guitar lines of instrumental opener ‘No Respects’ descend into a primitively pummelling groove – it almost sounds like a blithe paradox to the malevolent, disorderly brawl of Ersatz.

In fact, ‘No Respects’ is The Fall reverting back to a time when they were at their most accessible. You almost expect  Brix Smith’s customary yelp to interject the garage-rock stomp that forms its essentially playful core. And just when you thought Smith was being facetious with his emphatic claims, the record promptly abandons its façade and transcends into the chaotic sprawl of ‘Sir William Wray’ with its dominant synth, intertwining guitars and boisterous vocal squall’s. For a second there we thought we’d been duped by post-punk’s undisputed ruler and sole constant, but it was a short-lived sensation.

The Fall’s trajectory has never remained unchanged – but Mark E. Smith’s unyielding pursuit to be anything other than predictable is perpetually present. There’s nothing habitual about any Fall album – except the force of Smith’s famous declamatory bark – his prominent but often detached utterance – infinitely cryptic but sounding more apathetic over time; gradually losing coherency over the course of their discography. Although that doesn’t imply any signs of complacency, because it’s Mark E. Smith’s contrary instinct that has turned The Fall into one of the most prolific, consistently compelling cult acts in British music.

Of course, The Fall do have a ‘Trademark’, and it’s their ability to undergo a myriad of stylistic changes over the years without eschewing that archetypal “Fall sound” – defined by abrasive guitar and frequent use of repetition, continuously underpinned by Smith’s idiosyncratic vocals and esoteric lyricism. And that’s perhaps why Ersatz GB wasn’t particularly triumphant to the majority of critics and fans alike, because the prominence of Smith’s lyrics is distinctly amiss, lost under the cacophony of  brutish instrumentation and Smith’s incomprehensible snarl.

It’s almost surprising just how much more lyrically focused this record is in contrast to its precedent. This is particularly distinct in ‘Jetplane’ in which Elena’s predominant keyboard sound is coupled with an infectious military march rhythm, sustained by Mark’s cantankerous rant about airline queues. Despite the mundane subject matter Smith shows his inherent deftness for depicting banality using shrewd poetic discourse, meanwhile Elena’s keyboard proficiency is evocative of a certain Fall sound that hasn’t quite been interpreted this well since the late ‘80s.  Elsewhere Mark E Smith is a ferocious presence. ‘Hittie Man’ recalls early ’80s Fall with its post-punk growl and ominous bass, while tracks like ‘Victricola Time’ and ‘Noise’ feel  much like redundant fillers that could easily be forgotten.

And that’s why Re-Mit affirms the general perception of recent Fall albums being primarily one on, one off. While Ersatz initially sounds not quite as involved or developed, Re-Mit seems more focused with a vision – it’s what you would expect The Fall to sound like in 2013, 30 albums down the line (having pretty much released one a year since their inaugural studio effort Live At The Witch Trials in 1979). It is fully charged – it’s hard as nails – yet none of this record seems to be in the same brutal vein as Ersatz GB. And while it achieves clearer production and a style that is livelier and more melodically centred, it doesn’t sacrifice its uncompromising and challenging nature. Instead it revisits elements of The Fall’s past while continuing to be innovative.

Re-Mit isn’t exactly going to win over the uninitiated, but for abiding fans this is an album that – while it doesn’t reside amongst the best of their work – certainly deserves to be credited as one of their most ambitious, envelope-pushing albums of the band’s discography. Never have The Fall sounded so brilliantly abstruse or downright weird – maybe at least not since Levitate. It’s an unsettling, incomparable racket of The Fall at their wonderful, frightening best.

Where to begin with Mark Lanegan’s voice? It’s a melted-down chainsaw. Soft beams of light shooting across a bubbling tar pit. A rusted tractor set ablaze amidst heavy downpour. Rich. Ragged. Ridiculous. It’s also one of the most uniquely expressive voices in American music – arguably similar to that of Tom Waits in its ability to extricate a sumptuously soulful croon from the sound of over-zealous vocal cord scrapings. But unlike the perma-hatted veteran, Lanegan never gives into the gnarl. He’s simply a vessel for sorrows that are resigned to their fate: in other words, the blues.

For all the raw feeling summoned by those rattling pipes, Mark has always worked best in collaboration with others. Sure, he’s made stand-out solo records since making his name as the Screaming Trees’ frontman (‘Whiskey For The Holy Ghost’ and ‘Bubblegum’ representing particular career highlights), but sparks have truly flown when rubbing shoulders with the likes of Isobel Campbell and fellow Gutter Twin Greg Dulli. On Black Pudding he’s enlisted the help of multi-instrumentalist Duke Garwood, and the results are often stunning.

The opening title track introduces us to Garwood’s nimble guitar work, which is both delicate and yet subtly powerful, paving the way for the tone of the rest of the album. Basic blues motifs serve as a peg on which to hang his ideas, which make songs feel like meditative explorations of mood rather than linear stories. Nothing is resolved. Instead we find textural experiments like the quick bursts of guitar drone that scorch ‘Mescalito’s arid shuffle, coalescing and gradually evaporating like sunspots in the desert heat.

Then there’s the tumbling, intuitive piano that stumbles dizzily around the drunken lament of ‘Last Rung’, brashly beautiful in its plaintive chaos. In the midst of all this, Lanegan offers thoughtful whispers of lost loves and portents of doom – “Death rides a white horse,” he sombrely intones, “But I ain’t seen him yet.” If that reads like a defiant claim of invulnerability, the song’s fooling no-one. The line is practically shrugged into your speakers, grimly accepting the inevitability of mortality: a spine-tingling moment.

‘Black Pudding’ works best at its most sparse, which is why flute-drenched psych ballad ‘Shade Of The Sun’ is infinitely more arresting than ‘Cold Molly’s loose-limbed, stoned groove. Minor quibbles aside, however, it feels more like the product of two minds in sync than a collection of contrasting ideas thrown at the wall, which tallies up with Lanegan’s admission that Garwood is one of his “all time favourite artists”.

With an over-saturation of pseudo-folkies grabbing acoustics and aiming pointlessly for some intangible sense of ‘authenticity’, it’s easy to feel that there’s an over-saturation of terrible faux-Americana in this day and age. By plunging impassively into their own hearts of darkness, Mark Lanegan and Duke Garwood have demonstrated that there’s still plenty of life lurking in the muddy waters of the blues.

From a creative and personal standpoint, reaching a moment where crawling is the only real way you can move forward typically represents a crushingly low period for an artist. So, by Pure X titling their second record Crawling Up The Stairs, you know damn well going in that it’s going to be a dark, heavy listen.

Yet, within the raw despair and utter anguish that courses through their stirring new batch of songs, the Austin, Texas trio have also layered a subtle optimism and slight hope. For indeed, the title does mention going up the stairs after all, and that promising direction suggests a light awaits after this lingering period of darkness, giving the album some necessary depth and life that prevents these songs from getting dragged down in a hopeless abyss of misery.

Frontman Nate Grace went through plenty of personal turmoil to make it to this point, after suffering a serious leg injury while skateboarding and not having any insurance to cover the necessary surgery, he struggled to reach a point where he could finally walk again. And meanwhile, while Grace was fighting to stand, the rest of the band were caught in a state of creative stasis that kept them immobile in their own way. Crawling Up The Stairs was born out of that wretched sense of unrest and toil, with the group throwing themselves desperately and passionately into their new album simply because that was the only thing left for them to hold tight to at that point.

And while Stairs represents a subdued sonic departure from the guitar drenched hazy atmospherics that permeated Pure X’s stellar debut, Pleasure, these new songs still pack the same textured musical punch, just drawing from a deeper, more vulnerable source. The ethereal title track serves as a hushed introduction to the proceedings, leading into the desolate, somber plea of ‘Someone Else,’ which has you haunted and broken before it even hits the halfway point. But rather than reveal their fragile emotional state so plainly, the band retreats into the psychedelic excursion of ‘Written In The Slime,’ which could be about anything after all, but the grimey title  - and the overall tone of the record itself – suggests aspirations that have been dragged through a foul mire.

The ominous, post-disco pulse of ‘I Fear What I Feel,’ lets bassist Jesse Jenkins and drummer Austin Youngblood lock in and dynamically lead the track into the dark corners of a dance party at the end of the world, with Grace admitting how tired he’s grown from the pain. Heavy, heady stuff, no matter how funky the groove is. The vibe is a bit lighter on ‘Things In My Head,’ even if the subject matter remains rooted in Grace’s fatalistic musings. And things obviously won’t get any brighter on a song named, ‘Shadows And Lies,’ with Pure X heading towards The Downward Spiral in both the slow-burning squall of the song structure and Grace’s vanquished histrionics.

‘I Come From Nowhere’ and ‘Never Alone’ both have a warped, Beatles-like churn to them, sounding like devilish Sgt. Pepper’s outtakes filtered through a harder and heavier drug use that doesn’t have an eventual bright side nor a Ringo to save them. The second half of the record snaps out of its hazy psychedelic muddle with the urgent accusations that lie at the unsettled heart of the raucous ‘How Did You Find Me,’ which is driven along by Grace’s fiery guitar work and his ragged vocals. But the song speaks to the subject getting found at his one of their darkest moments, with a positivity and pop sheen buried within the tempestuous arrangement.

The album winds to a graceful close with a trio of songs that all contain rebirths and new starts, with the hopeful acoustic strum of ‘Thousand Year Old Child’ leading fluidly into the Zeppelin-like interlude, ‘Rain At Dawn,’ before the record closes with the promising electronic swing of ‘All Of The Future (All Of The Past),’ which has a bold, vibrant spirit to it that suggests that better times lie ahead, we just have to make sure we’re there to enjoy it. Dark elements permeate the menacing corners of Crawling Up The Stairs, and while it may have been a long, grueling journey to get through, it seems that by the end of this bumpy road, Pure X have reached a positive creative terrain that suggests their long climb up the from the bottom was worth all the effort and pain it took to get there.

Though her records have previously explored a variety of topics ranging from the overdue birth of a baby dinosaur to the musical powers of the planet Neptune, as the title of her sixth album makes clear, Scout Niblett – or Emma, to her mum – has finally turned her gaze inwards.

The remarkably brazen It’s Up To Emma does a lot to set alight any notion of kookiness that might continue to plague her but Scout Niblett is still better appreciated as a formidable all round oddity than a particularly dazzling musician. Simplicity is too long a word for what’s going on here; her astounding wail of a voice is rarely accompanied by anything other than a guitar or drum, and only quite rarely are both of those instruments playing at once.

Even though they’ve been recorded with a sympathetic grit that ensures the album packs a punch even in its quieter moments, it’s almost as if what’s going on with the instruments is meant to be the last thing on your mind. Proper enjoyment requires a level of submission, an admittance that you’re going to let Scout do her thing, be that whispering, yelling or bellowing, and find out from it what you can.

Singing largely about herself, it’s an album littered with first person pronouns – ‘Can’t Fool Me Now’, ‘My Man’, ‘What Can I Do?’ – but its nine, stark selections of grungy folk rock are far from self indulgent. She inhabits situations that at their best are as gripping as any horror film; varying from mildly harrowing descriptions of love in ‘Woman and Man’ to outright premeditations on murder in the opening ‘Gun’, and though they’re nothing to do with you, you’re captivated by the conviction with which they’re delivered all the same.

In honesty, it’s not the sound of someone who sounds totally OK. It feels poised between angry raging and introspective shyness, often, as on the wildly dynamically varied ‘Could This Possibly Be?’, in the same song. What you’re meant to make of Scout Niblett’s state of mind at the end of it, other than having had your suspicions of her wild talent confirmed, is likely to be different for every listener.

Though It’s Up To Emma contains a few too many numbers unnecessarily stretching over four minutes when three would probably have gotten the point home with more force, there is one such song (‘Can’t Fool Me Now’) that warrants such a running time. A defiantly sprawling number that builds from the most threadbare of guitar-led beginnings into a string laden, choral epic, it finds Niblett sounding surprisingly comfortable with being out on a limb. The feeling of empowerment it provides her translates with majesty to the listener, too. Imbibing such personal performances with a universally relatable humanity is the greatest strength to a record that makes fragility sound pretty devastating.

The gubernatorial surrounds of Islington Assembly Hall seem slightly at odds with the fluorescent schtick of Doseone – he of Themselves, 13 and God and cLOUDDEAD fame. And for about 10 minutes, an air of bemusement envelopes the early revelers; or perhaps they’re simply hypnotised by his garb (neon-pink t-shirt, big-buckled ‘I Love Haters’-adorned belt and flashy old school hip hop jacket).

The music’s fittingly kaleidoscopic too. His high-pitched squall, laid over disjointed, funk-tinged beats, sits somewhere between Prince and Connan Mockasin. The set is unhinged and fragmented but there’s something mesmeric about watching a man swig from a half-bottle of bourbon on stage. “I rap, too,” he helpfully informs the uninitiated before launching into a series of blistering, propeller-tongued rhymes and leaving to a hearty, if slightly befuddled, round of applause.

The contrast with Anticon stable-mates Why?’s performance could hardly be starker. Yoni Wolf has brought his full quintet on tour and the unit is tight, the set polished and slick. Where Dose was tanking drams of whiskey, Wolf sips from a bottle of mineral water (a tickle in his throat sees him reset the band once or twice). And no matter how many times you spin his records, it’s still always something of a surprise to hear the expletives fall from Wolf’s mouth in the flesh. His slight stature, polite, slightly-reserved stage manner and tame interaction with his audience and band is somewhat incongruous with some of his more potty-mouthed, vitriolic lyrical content.

The songs from Elephant Eyelash and Alopecia were always going to be crowd-pleasers – and so it pans out. ‘Waterfalls’ from the former kicks the set off nicely and Yoni holds the mic aloft triumphantly, as the crowd bellows back the chorus of ‘Good Friday’, not a “disinterested bitch” in the house. The stellar ‘January Twenty Something’ from the sometimes forgotten Eskimo Snow acts as something of a bridge, as Why? launch into a series of cuts from last year’s underrated (at least in some, influential quarters) Mumps, Etc.

One of the most interesting elements of the evening is witnessing the deployment of the band’s newest work. It is arguably Yoni Wolf at his most narcissistic – but as with all of his lyrics, you get the feeling that in the Denton, Texas studio in which it was recorded, there was at least one tongue boring a sizeable hole in a Wolf’s cheek. The band chooses well: the one-two-three of ‘Waterlines’, ‘Strawberries’ and ‘Jonathan’s Hope’ are the record’s strongest and are well-received – but by the time they’re finished, the crowd is baying for old blood.

They get it in the form of ‘These Few Presidents’, ‘Yo Yo Bye Bye’ and ‘The Hollows’. The latter in particular shows Why? and Yoni Wolf at their best: the flicked, bassy riff, the ghostly harmonies, the nasally delivered, borderline slapstick lyrics (“I spent the last six months hiding behind a moustache”) and the big, singalong chorus. The song prompts the first and only real surge from the audience – whose slight reservation is perhaps a reflection of that of the band itself. But musically, the evening’s performance can’t be faulted.

Part ’70s art-punk, part garage rock and part ’00s guitar revival-revival, Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs have clambered to the top of the six-stringer buzz-pile. Leapfrogging Swim Deep and Merchandise (who, given, are still in the midst of crafting their respective debuts), Boyer & Co. have been wowing many a muso with their consistent, nostalgic harking back, not to mention the oodles of fuzzy guitar riffs. Early tracks like ‘I Watch You’ and ‘Things We Be’ were instantly ear-catching, showing the soon-to-be displayed potential of Charlie Boyer and The Voyeurs. Now, with Clarietta - the first full-length from the London quintet – we are finally able to find out if they manage to live up to the fuss that surrounds them.

The title track recalls archaic punk wonders, the kind of old-school disco tracks that creep out of the walls at weddings. At times there’s a splatter of britpop tautness, and occasionally, references to The Strokes or The Libertines (and other bands from back when Pete Doherty wasn’t a joke) rear their heads. For all their ’70s NYC influences, it’s remarkably British. However, cuts like ‘Be Glamorous’ or ‘You Haven’t Got A Chance’, do lean towards the States. The former is swaggering blues-rock with organ riffs and chunky chords; the latter wears hints of Iggy Pop (though Boyer is considerably more restrained, and the guitars much more lethargic).

Clarietta is produced by fabled legend Edwyn Collins, a man of many musical talents, behind records from The Cribs, Vic Godard, who CB&TV have been likened to – as well as The Seeds, Television and The Voidoids. This raw, scratchy brand of modern rock led them to a support slot with one of last years buzz bands, TOY, and the kind exposure that can be measured in Facebook likes and hits on YouTube. They may be unashamedly channeling the sounds of yesteryear, but contemporary rock fanatics and post-punk aficionados are lapping it up like it’s never been done before.

‘A Lion’s Way’ reveals a different side to the group, one that’s steeped in psych-pop warps and ghost-train echoes. It’s sodden with reverb and similar effects – there are moments where you could be forgiven for hearing shoegaze sounds, but on the whole, and especially when the chorus hits, it’s glammy pop with a tie-dyed glaze. ‘Clarinet’ is scummier, with a tangled, throbbing chorus made from slowed-down and distorted axe licks. It’s got a punk vibe, but none of the furore, and none of the belligerent instrumentation. It’s quite happy to be messy, but it’s all very apathetic, which is great.

Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs have crafted a solid debut. There’s plenty of charm, and though a lot of it has been beaten to death with a revivalist stick before, it’s still a really fun record. Their take on the genre isn’t enough to reinvent the wheel – it’s more like a new coat of paint. The noises are hand-plucked from rock history, dusted off and shown to a new audience. Fortunately, they’ve chosen the best parts to display, and the result is an album that’s thoroughly enjoyable, if a tad on the safe side. No doubt we’ll hear more from the group, and when we do, they’ll be welcomed with open arms.

The function room of the New Oxford pub seems somewhat undersized to host two of the finest contemporary purveyors of traditional American folk on a rare trip to the UK and an even rarer to trek to the North. The cosy confines soon turn out to be a blessing in disguise, however.

M.C. Taylor – the North Carolina-based songwriter operating under the Hiss Golden Messenger banner – has barely made it through a beguiling version of ‘Jesus Shot Me in the Head’ (one of the highpoints of 2011’s Poor Moon, something of a breakthrough album for Taylor following several years of toiling with varying fortunes in the business of making music) to the beyond-packed room when the venue loses electricity. “Does electricity also get a day off on Bank Holiday?” Taylor jests. The answer, unfortunately, appears to be yes. Power is soon restored, only to vanish again minutes later, this time for good, save for enough juice to fire up erstwhile Lambchop (and HGM) guitarist William Tyler’s amp.

Lesser performers would pack up and storm off. In town as part of the Sounds from the Other City festival, which takes place across several venues in in Salford, Taylor and Tyler regroup to produce an improvised performance that’s bound to be unforgettable for the lucky few who have managed to squeeze in to the venue.

Standing precariously on a stool to maximise audibility over the clatter of glasses drifting from the other end of the pub, the lack of amplification seems to bring out the full expressive power of Taylor’s rust-and-honey voice, emphasising the unadorned beauty of his melodies and – most importantly – the compelling depths of the lyrics.

Mysterious, brooding songs like ‘Sufferer (Love Thy Conqueror)’ from career-best, deservedly praised new album Haw (dedicated to Songs:Ohia/Magnolia Electric Co.’s Jason Molina tonight) dodge easy interpretations, yet pack far too much emotive power to slide into meaning-skirting obscurity. Spiritual concerns crop up regularly, much as they do in the classic country music that is one of Taylor’s key influences. The infectious ‘Busted Note’ is introduced as a song about Jesus without a hint of irony but, again, doubt, unease and openness to multiple readings keep comforting certainties at bay.

As potent as Taylor’s timeless country-got-soul songwriting is, this isn’t solely his show. Apart from contributing compelling atmospherics to many of Taylor’s songs (including a stinging lead guitar spot on the raucous ‘Red Rose Nantahala’), Tyler wheels out a number of tracks from much-acclaimed new album Impossible Truth, essaying near-superhuman dexterity on the fretboard – you’d swear there were at least three guitarists on stage – and finely honed, melodically endowed, modernised take on the long line of American folk/blues solo guitar explorations.

It’s a testament to the potency of Taylor and Tyler’s performance that the squeezed room is entirely hushed throughout the set. The crowd’s rapt attention during the very literally unplugged performance isn’t lost on the performers. The phrase ‘we’re all in this together’ sounds horribly hollow when parroted by austerity-peddling politicians. When Taylor liberates a crate of beer from the backroom to hand out as liquid thank you’s to patient listeners, however, it feels as if we’ve been part of a much more communal, boundary-free experience than a standard-issue gig. The brisk traffic at merchandise stall afterwards suggests that the extra effort Taylor and Tyler have made to entertain the crowd tonight hasn’t been wasted.

Last time round, Dirty Beaches was looking out across the states. His breakout record Badlands was a brief 27-minute detour through the dark underbelly of Americana, littered with reference points that suggested someone deeply intimate with the subject.

The title evoked the double-denimed menace of Martin Sheen in the Terrence Malick film of the same name. Taiwanese born, Montreal based man Alex Zhang Hungtai’s hiccuping vocal brought to mind a ghoulish Elvis turned wild by too many thrusting gyrations. ‘Sweet 17’ seemed to draw on the ephebophile passions of Humbert Humbert, a fellow outsider, traveller and observer of America, while even Hungtai’s own pompadoured lone-wolf image made him look like the kind of greaser that might pop up in a dark episode of Happy Days and pull a switchblade on The Fonz. Where most saw a well-manicured lawn and a white picket fence, Dirty Beaches saw the swarming bug’s nest sitting beneath the surface.

On Drifters/Love Is The Devil Hungtai goes bigger and, in the wake of the break-up of a long-term relationship, turns that eye for the darker side of human nature on himself in what feels like his cinematic debut. Dirty Beaches has always been an immediately visual project; the kind that produces records comprised of characters and narratives rather than verses and choruses. Accordingly, just in the last month Hungtai released his third film soundtrack, Water Park, whose serene, under-the-water ambience lends the short film it accompanies (about a shopping mall in Edmonton, Canada — naturally) a celestial awe; as if Hungtai was already imagining something bigger, more widescreen. And so Drifters/Love Is The Devil, a double concept album of sorts that tells ‘the same story but from two different perspectives’, is Hungtai’s shot at creating something cinematic in scope as well as style.

The first half of the diptych, Drifters, is a study in demented self-obliteration; a montage of gaudy jump cuts detailing all kinds of material excess. And for all Hungtai’s cinematic pretensions, it’s this kind of visceral overload and grimy minimalism – building on Badlands’ prototype, pushing two or three elements to 11 until the whole song trembles – that Dirty Beaches still does best. ‘Casino Lisboa’ is a louche, obnoxious lounge crawl punctuated by Hungtai’s wide-eyed yelp and drum machine snare hits that splutter forward like a bad drunk. ‘I Dream In Neon’ deals in overbearing organ and drone textures that sound like something Laura Palmer might have done coke to in the Pink Room. ‘Au Revoir Mon Visage’ places Hungtai – sweaty, panting – in some bad metaphysical dream, accompanied only by a maddening, vaguely tribal drum roll. ‘Mirage’ Hall’ collapses in on itself in an orgy of Harley Davidson revs, with Hungtai screaming, as if waking from a night terror, “It’ll take your head off!”

What ‘it’ is exactly is the issue of Love Is The Devil, which deals with the interior world obscured by Drifters’ blown-out overload and sees Hungtai in his contemplative, ambient soundtrack mode that so irked on Badlands. Here his abilities seem more fully formed and kind to the type of listener who isn’t prepared to connect the dots of his sometimes lean style. ‘Berlin’ and ‘Alone at the Danube’, two seven-minute rainy-day reminiscences built around a frosted, metallic guitar sighing between two or three chords, have Dirty Beaches at its most melodic and wistful.

The latter, ‘Danube’ could even be described as pretty; when a celestial synth tone comes in about half way through, sounding like a sudden ray of sunlight breaking through clouds and shimmering on the waters, it’s a moment that justifies the sometimes unfulfilling cinematic economy that Hungtai can take with his music (of particular note: the undercooked noir of ‘Greyhound At Night’, and’ ‘Woman’, which feels out of place attempting the kind of mad repetition of Drifters in a more ambient voice). Similarly the title track, ‘Love Is The Devil’, a sombre yet melodramatic dirge replete with MIDI orchestration that leaves it sounding like an outtake from Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks soundtrack, is powerfully raw in its dejection.

Like many double albums, Drifters/Love Is The Devil has the feel of an artist trying on new identities and exploring – like one of the homesick and homeless in his songs – beyond the peripheries of their comfort zone. Talking to Pitchfork in 2011, Hungtai spoke passingly of ‘a lot of B-sides that will never seen the light of day’ that ranged from ‘dance songs to hip-hop songs to jazz’. The record isn’t quite the maximalist’s paradise where all those discarded demos and tucked away B-sides finally come to life. Long-time fans will recognize polished up blueprints from earlier records, and even in its prettier, cleaner moments it’s still obviously a record by the man who brought us Badlands; the same guy fascinated by the past, deferential to his elders, who uses worn, black-and-white photobooth snaps of his courting parents on his 7’ covers.

Drifters/Love Is The Devil isn’t always an unqualified success, but more often than not it displays Dirty Beaches as a project increasingly adept at the scattershot of styles, imprinted with Hungtai’s own recognisable mark.

London’s Still Corners go somewhat quietly about their business. They have followed-up their 2010 debut Creatures Of An Hour with another, more intricate, 80s-infused record that feels like the natural progression a good sophomore should.

The duo belong to the ever-impressive Sub Pop family and perhaps deserve more attention than they enjoy, due to their heady mix of cerebral, and at times downright haunting, style.

Marrying Greg Hughes’s intuitive songwriting with the soaring, breathy vocals of Tessa Murray, they have quite effortlessly slipped into more catchy territory with, the suitably titled, Stange Pleasures, and celebrated its release with a string of UK shows before they join CHVRCHES across America.

XOYO provides the home for the London leg of their journey and, following support from the stunning ambience of Woman’s Hour, a flickering projection welcomes the four to the stage, accompanied by loyal cheers of excitement; it’s an eye-catchingly satisfying set from the outset as these visuals flood the back-drop.

They may occupy the dream-pop bracket, but it’s a label that doesn’t tell the whole live story; thundering, massively impressive real drums dominate early songs with intricate, dancing rhythms really showing flashes of their new, more up-tempo style. ‘Berlin Lovers’, with its fuzzy synth bass line, is an early highlight.

Similarly, the whirring organ of tracks like ‘Cuckoo’ and the FX-heavy guitar in the wonderfully euphoric ‘Fireflies’, show their versatility and highlight Murray’s faultless live voice, while glistening keys add brightness to the moments of gloom in older numbers.

The impressive performance is so well thought-out, with the aforementioned visuals and cold blue lights neatly matching the different waves of sound. The set feels entirely professional and, although their genre maybe saturated, they’ve perfectly cornered their market.

In a recent interview in the Guardian, Van Dyke Parks states candidly and reflectively how he realized back in the 60′s that, “Fame could be an inconvenience and time has borne me out.” And the legendary songwriter/composer/lyricist/producer’s decidedly underappreciated career has certainly stayed true to his convictions, as Parks has quietly but convincingly helped shape the direction of modern music, albeit mostly from the safe and subtle distance of the sidelines while gratefully ceding the spotlight to more famous artists.

Whether through his ill-fated attempts at co-writing the Beach Boys‘ Smile with Brian Wilson, to producing albums for Randy Newman, Phil Ochs, and Joanna Newsom (to name just a few), as well as arranging songs for U2, Frank Black, Fiona Apple and Saint Etienne (and many others), in addition to writing and recording his own experimental 1968 solo debut album, Song Cycle, Parks has helped influence and guide not only where music has been heading, but what it can sound like once it gets there, for well over 40 years now.

On Parks’ new collection of material Songs Cycled, the percipiently titled homage to his most famous work, he collects six 7″ singles he has released over the course of the past few years into a soaring, textured album filled with both artistic conviction and bold confidence. The songs have the depth and detail that Parks has been known for throughout his lengthy career, while also reflecting a nuanced vibrancy and insightful social criticism that is lacking in most modern pop music. The attention to detail and pristine production quality found throughout each of these numbers not only gives them a classic tone and tenor, but also luxuriously brings them brazenly into the current musical landscape, making many of the contemporary hits of today sound tinny and slight by comparison.

The grandiose, cafe society romp of ‘Dreaming Of Paris’ vibrantly launches the album, providing a spirited starting point for the record as Parks takes us on a musical journey through both style and time. He revisits his past for the first of many times throughout the record on ‘Hold Back Time,’ which was found originally on Orange Crate Art, his ’95 collaborative album with Brian Wilson. This reworked version removes much of the unnecessary elements of the original, including the directionless percussion, leaving a far more poignant arrangement that soars elegantly now that its freed of the burdensome bloat of the earlier recording.

‘Sassafrass’ has a front porch American South charm to it, with the vocal harmonies bouncing from all corners of the speakers atop a jaunty arrangement that is reminiscent of Parks’ classic work on Disney’s Jungle Book. But he brings us decidedly back into the present with ‘Black Gold,’ a somber, exhaustive take on the environmental devastation done by the Prestige oil spill of 2002, as well as ‘Wall Street,’ and ‘Money Is King,’ which both vehemently take to task those greedy opportunists who took advantage of an unsteady and unsanctioned financial climate left in the dark wake of 9/11 to line their pockets despite the long term harm their careless actions would have on the world markets. That balance of making the old sound new again, while at the same time injecting the modern sound with his sophisticated classic touch, makes these songs rooted in the present as well as the past, while also clearly exemplifying Parks’ polished mastery of the styles of both time periods.

The ominous steel drum-laden instrumental, ‘Aquarium,’ revisits an old Parks’ arrangement from The Carnival of the Animals, and helps usher in the biting social commentary and protest songs that pulse angrily through the album’s middle section. But the the countrified harmonies of the hymn-like ‘The Parting Hand’ move beyond the unsavory, earthly pursuits of man if favor of a higher calling, before giving way to a graceful symphonic coda that includes a wistful vocal take on Anthony Showalter’s old gospel tune, ‘Leaning On The Everlasting Arms.’

‘The All Golden’ is yet another reworked song from Parks’ distinguished past, as he dusts off one of the highlights from Song Cycle, giving the 45-year-old track some modern flourishes while still maintaining the aching, searching quality of the original number. The album closes with a trio of songs that all have a leisurely Southern swing to them, as the bouncy instrumental ‘Wedding In Madagascar,’ the touching ode to what was lost in the aftermath of Katrina (and never to be found again) in ‘Missin’ Missippi,’ and the dignified sobriety of ‘Amazing Graces’ bring the record to a stately close. Songs Cycles certainly doesn’t represent all that Van Dyke Parks has to say about the state of the modern world, but the album does manage to assuredly illuminate Parks’ singular artistic vision and his enduring impact on the music of our times.

As personal information about The Child of Lov, man Cole Williams continues to rise to the surface, we know a couple of things for sure: he’s Dutch, he loves the human voice and he’s created an incredibly ambitious, soulful avant-garde debut. Over the course of his new eponymous LP it’s clear that he finds human vocals to be just as emotive and expressive as any other instrument.

Whether he’s channeling Cee-Lo (as on ‘Heal’) or Prince (as on ‘Warrior’) or surrounding songs with backing vocals, it’s obvious that he wants to be a singer in the most literal sense of the term. Which explains why Lov appears to view vocals as much as a compositional tool as, say, the guitar. For example, ‘Call Me Up’ features fridge-buzzing vocals on either side of the mix, acting as the foundation of the song.

A coldly funky number, ‘Call’ finds Lov affecting a gospel-inspired singing style, and the main vocals being layered over each other as a capstone. In this way, the song forces you to pay attention to the singing purely because there’s so much of it. Lov, it seems, believes how words are sung is as important as the words themselves. That same trick is used on the baroque pop-esque ‘One Day’: ghostly wailing weaves in and out of the song emphasising the sentiment that “One day you gotta die.”

That said, when vocals aren’t the compositional center, Lov is still an engaging songwriter. He paints ‘Owl’ with lazily nervous dub over which DOOM turns in yet another verse of self-contained, Twitter-length philosophy. Elsewhere, Lov plays around with stumbling boom-bap and foggy synths on ‘Go With the Wind,’ and experiments with sweaty ‘70s funk and stabbing guitar during ‘Heal.’ He even tries slot-machine disco as a basis for ‘Fly.’

That song, like much of the record, is about overcoming adversity and freeing yourself to a better life. “I’m gonna rise up,” Lov repeats, before explaining that he needs wings to take flight. In case you’re not in that mindset, though, he offers advice to those who lives might not be on track: “You don’t have to worry anymore,” he coaxes. Instead, he presents another option: “Go with the wind.” The Child of Lov may be shrouded in mystery, but his purpose of self-help is crystal clear: “I am a mountaintop/ I am a child of love/ Look in the mirror, I am warrior.”

In many ways, the three punctuation marks that comprise the moniker of this Sacremento six-piece are a statement of intent, for !!! (pronounced “Chk Chk Chk”) aren’t a band that care much for subtlety.

Exiling themselves to a log cabin, penning delicately crafted ballads about love and loss is certainly not part of their M.O., nor is jettisoning their live band for deep aerobics and diatribes on gender theory. Their sole aim is to make people dance as hard as possible, and in this noble mission they almost succeed, in spite of a sound mix as muggy as the venue on this warm Spring evening.

The core of the !!! live experience is indubitably Nic Offer and his frankly ridiculous dancing. That’s not to diminish the achievements of the rest of the band, who deliver funk-driven basslines and insanely tight percussion with commendable elan, but it’s his gurning, flailing presence that gives the show its infectious personality. He is by no means a suave dude. His alarming, unpredictable gyrations would, under non-gig circumstances, be banned by law, if not by international treaty. But it’s all so enthusiastic, it’s hard not to get caught up in a strange, and potentially ill-advised desire to emulate his uniquely mesmerising shapes.

It’s just a shame the music itself isn’t always as compelling as Offer’s moves are. Their filler/killer ratio has always been slightly out of whack, with too many songs falling into the “workmanlike” category, and tonight’s muffled low end did them no favours. But when they unleash the slick, Daft Punk-worthy space-funk of ‘One Girl /One Boy’ or the filthy, disco-punk brilliance of ‘Yadnus,’ it’s easy to see why they’ve garnered such a cult following. In all, it’s too uneven to be considered a classic performance, but at their best, !!! truly merit all three of their exclamation marks.

Photograph by Siamak Amini. Full Gallery here.

Where’s the drum kit?  Seriously, why hasn’t Zach Hill set up his drum kit?  Is he here? Won’t it… suck a bit, if he’s not here? What’s a Death Grips gig without Zach Hill? Stefan Burnett’s imposing and all, but can he really carry this off? This is a much bigger crowd than the last time they came to London. I really hope Zach starts setting up that drum kit soon.

Musings like that were commonplace as the Forum’s congregation stood awaiting the arrival of Death Grips.  Had I not been party to a bit of insider knowledge (turns out Zach Hill had indeed stayed away from a Glasgow gig a few nights back previously), I’d have been as anxious as the others. Their show at the Electric Ballroom a few months back was astounding for many reasons, but a big one of those was Hill – watching him attack and destroy his miniscule drumkit like a possessed man taking orders from a cult leader was genuinely revelatory. I wanted to see it again, note for note, smack for smack, but at least I was prepared for something different.

Thankfully I’d not only been told that Glasgow weren’t privy to any Hill drumming, but also that it didn’t matter – the reports were just as rapturous. It turns out that Burnett’s way around a stage, (continually contorting his naked, glistening torso as he raps in a manner that has you worried that his throat might tear open to reveal an Alien-style monster), is more than enough of a visual hit to keep one entertained.

Silhouetted against the smoke and strobes, he couldn’t look more imposing. But unsung hero Andy “Flatlander” Morin – the one in Death Grips who nobody ever talks about but tonight is on stage handling everything that isn’t the rapping or dancing like a maniac – has enough technical nous and great tunes at his disposal to ensure that our musical appetites are satiated along with our visual cravings. No need to worry; Death Grips both look and sound amazing.

Live, Hill’s drumming was the most welcome distraction from a decidedly imposing set of tunes, but his absence this evening allows you – in the moments where Burnett isn’t screaming in your face – to focus on what else is going on in the music, of which there’s a baffling amount. Three albums (OK, two and a mixtape) in to their career, their style has developed in to something more diverse than breakthrough number ‘Guillotine’ – given a sound beating tonight – could ever have suggested. Though Burnett’s delivery of them is never at less than full throttle, comparing a song like the slowly revealed peril of ‘No Love’ to a hands in the air party banger like ‘I’ve Seen Footage’ reveals them to be a band with more subtlety than they’re usually given credit for. Whoever’s in Death Grips of any given evening and whatever song they’re chucking at you, they’re always on the attack. But it’s the way in which they vary their angle that really thrills.

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk with a Lomo. Full gallery here.

“End of an era” is a phrase thrown around far too variably these days, whether it’s in reference to a football coach retiring, or, ahem, boy bands splitting. ATP‘s recent announcement that their UK holiday camp weekenders will cease from the end of the year seems less of an era coming to a close, despite what the marketing of their final shows might suggest, and instead somewhere between the passing of a dream that always did seem a little too good to be true and the curious possibility of what will come next.

For the music fan’s music fan, those single-handedly keeping the music industry afloat, the events – coming roughly quarterly every year since 1999 – combined the leisure of a weekend away while simultaneously cutting the fat off an average festival’s billing. But with well-noted financial troubles and disagreements with their past venues, you’d be forgiven for expecting All Tomorrow’s Parties to scale back a bit. This doesn’t seem to be the case; instead, it seems business as usual.

What bolder a move to show full steam ahead than to announce a festival at a former NATO base in Iceland? And so with fans hopeful, if not slightly confused by recent unfoldings, it’s all eyes on the company’s 2013 edition of their I’ll Be Your Mirror sister-event, fronted by Yeah Yeah Yeahs at London’s Alexandra Palace. And with the Grizzly Bear leg meant to follow on the Sunday postponed at short notice, the day really needed to run smoothly to keep up consumer confidence among the ATP crowd.

Named after the original b-side to ‘All Tomorrows Parties’, a fact not always self-explanatory, I’ll Be Your Mirror tends to follow the same suit as the organisations classic events, in which the headline act curates proceedings and, in doing so, inherently opens ATP up to the fears faced by other festivals – but also does so to a greater extent. What do you do if  a band simply picks a few misses and even fewer hits? There’s not much you can do, really.

But it would be a bit harsh to say that was entirely this case with this May Bank Holiday instalment. Instead, the line-up simply didn’t seem fitting of the setting. Whereas at Camber Sands, and Minehead before it, you could guarantee at least a couple of hundred (maybe hungover, possibly sleepless) onlookers for even the early-bird sets, a city-based event is always going to warrant a later start, with many opting for beers in the nearby Alexandra Park over the opening raucous of New Orleans bounce-hopper Big Freedia, psych-dance duo Prince Rama and the exotic extravagance of King Khan.

More disappointing is the mere handful in attendance of ambient soundscaper, The Field at the main stage, with the low turnout completely robbing the music of any immersive quality. By this point, the highlight of the day is – sadly – witnessing a punter, and complete stranger, raising his beer in the crowd to a Dirty Beaches-watching Karen O, who offers a bashful wry smile in response.

By the time the crowd do make their way in however, with half the bill already packing up and cracking open a beer of their own backstage, things start to peter a bit. Black Lips, whose association with hipster bible VICE has always left them open to accusations of style over substance, sound like a caricature of a garage rock band without half of the excitement. Masked grindcore bizarros The Locust, on the other hand, while wholly enjoyable in theory, have a live half-life much shorter than their 45 minute slot. Likewise, the game of counting how many times Jon Spencer Blues Explosion can shout their own band name at random intervals seems to be keeping more hooked than the actual music itself.

Instead, nearing the 9.30pm mark, the main room bloats out and the night starts to feel like an overpriced Yeah Yeah Yeahs gig rather than an entire all-day event. As the lights dim and expectations heighten, there seems to be a passing of the torch as ATP’s loyal old guard, with feet now understandably a little sore, relocate to the back while the younger sprites push forward towards the stage centre. Lucky for all involved, punters old, new and promoters alike, the band are just as bright and brash as a decade back. Karen O, who’s dressed for the evening either as a nu-rave take on Sgt. Pepper or Elvis Costello going to a New Year’s party, leads the way like a new age ringmaster.

Along with drummer Brian Chase and the never-aging Peter Pan of Goth-Punk, Nick Zinner, the trio run through what would be deemed a Greatest Hits set if their albums didn’t neatly connect the dots behind one another. Even their latest record, Mosquito, doesn’t venture far from the three that came before it. It does, however, bring one of the best highlights of the day though, with opener ‘Sacrilege’ – a riot grrl anthem for the modern age that Pussy Riot themselves must wish they had penned – only able to sound more sublime if there had been an actual choir onstage to sing the gospel intersection at the end. Perfectly executed closer ‘Date With The Night’ gets even the most tiresome moving and subsequently with one fell swoop makes everyone forget that which came before it.

With two of their last Pontins breaks nigh (TV on the Radio this weekend before Deerhunter next month), the day doesn’t completely evoke confidence from those in attendance but through limited fault of ATP’s own. Even though we’re presented with a headline band choosing art-rock density over sheer entertainment stakes, it’s thankfully a single-handed late save for an event that will now surely be the focus of ATP’s events calendar.

Pictures by Jason Williamson. Check out more photos from the festival here.

The last time Yeah Yeah Yeahs played in Manchester, at this same venue back in December 2009, they were on their victory lap for It’s Blitz!: a sharp, glittery pop record suffused with nods to dance and disco. The assuredness with which they pulled off a such a sonic left turn would leave them with little room to surprise when it came to making their next album; they’re one of the few established indie rock bands for whom the release of a lead single that features the abrupt introduction of a gospel choir at its midpoint wouldn’t be immediately considered a worryingly indulgent development.

I imagine the venue – a beautiful old, converted art deco cinema – is far more suited to a live show as theatrical as tonight’s than the academies the band are likely to frequent elsewhere (although it has, tragically, been blighted by the affliction of O2 sponsorship).  ’Sacrilege’ proves a fitting opener; the aforementioned choir are present only in recorded form, contrary to the slew of live TV performances on which they joined the band onstage. Their absence dampens the spectacle a little, sure, but Karen O is such an irresistibly compelling frontwoman that the aesthetic side of a Yeah Yeah Yeahs live show doesn’t really need enhancing in the first place.

The setlist lands firmly in retrospective territory, with cuts from new record Mosquito used for punctuation rather than backbone. Material from debut full-length Fever to Tell remains the band’s most potent in a live setting; ‘Black Tongue’ is O at her sassiest, with menacing guitar work from Nick Zinner simmering away in the background, whilst ‘Y Control’ is their piece-de-resistance, with an improbable, but startlingly effective marriage between atypically restrained, emotive vocals and an urgent, looped riff that blares like an air raid siren for the grunge generation.

Elsewhere, the big-hitting likes of ‘Phenomena’, ‘Gold Lion’ and ‘Zero’ are all present and correct; the question of whether or not they’re the strongest efforts from the releases they’re plucked from fades into irrelevance when you realise that, really, the songs are merely vehicles for the deliverance of O’s stage persona. From Lux Interior-inspired mic-swallowing on vintage cut ‘Art Star’ to treating the Apollo boards as a personal dancefloor at a uniquely debauched disco on ‘Heads Will Roll’, she exudes the kind of irrepressible charisma that remains one of the current alternative scene’s rarest commodities.

The set’s softer moments only serve as confirmation that O is capable of covering all bases; the criminally-underrated ‘Soft Shock’, a It’s Blitz! highlight, is delivered with impressive finesse, whilst ‘Maps’ – presented tonight in its original form, as opposed to the recently-favoured acoustic version – remains this century’s most devastating love song. ‘Subway’ is one of Mosquito‘s finest offerings, but its delicate nature was always likely to fall foul of a talkative crowd, and it sadly isn’t afforded the hush necessary to create a suitable atmosphere.

In fact, the reception for the new tracks tonight proves universally tepid; with the album only two weeks old, it’s difficult to ascertain whether it’s indifference or unfamiliarity that’s responsible – ‘Under the Earth’ is certainly underwhelming, but ‘Despair’, a masterfully crafted slow-burner, is surely destined for live-stapledom. The only unequivocal disappointment is the running time; the band were assigned a ninety-minute slot, but arrive fifteen late and still manage to finish early; the brutal truth is that there’s plenty of artists who charge less for tickets and have fewer songs to play than Yeah Yeah Yeahs that manage longer than an hour and a bit.

Regardless of any issues that the set’s duration might raise, there’s little ground for complaint when it comes to the evening’s entertainment value, especially once they’ve signed off in incendiary fashion with ‘Date with the Night’. Seeing Yeah Yeah Yeahs in 2013 not only involves bearing witness to indie rock’s most engaging performer – it also offers the opportunity to catch a genuinely-challenging rock band at somewhere close to the peak of their creative powers.

Photograph taken by Jason Williamson at I’ll Be Your Mirror.

Love has been inspiring and confounding artists for time eternal. And that elusive search for intimacy and meaning has certainly permeated Mick Harvey‘s fruitful 36-year musical partnership with Nick Cave, as the duo penned numerous indelible numbers together that delved deep into the dark affairs of the heart, as well as the complications that arise from giving or taking away a vulnerable part of yourself from someone you hold dear. Harvey left behind Cave’s Bad Seeds in 2009, but the talented Australian multi-instrumentalist has still boldly continued to explore the raw passion that pulses at the creative heart of any and all meaningful music.

Mick hasn’t slowed down a bit in recent years – playing, producing, writing and recording an impressive array of stirring songs (most notably with longtime collaborator, PJ Harvey) that still resonate with the clarity of vision that infused his earlier work, even while his sound has grown more refined and muted as of late. Harvey’s sixth studio album, Four (Acts Of Love), features a restrained song cycle filled with wistful originals, suggestive covers, as well as a stirring collaboration with Polly Jean on one of her older, unreleased songs.

All the numbers artfully fit the affectionate theme of the title, with the record itself divided into three acts, all named for covers featured in each respective section: ‘Summertime in New York,’ ‘The Story of Love,’ and ‘Wild Hearts (Run Out Of Time).’ And while the mood of each act reflects the collective spirit of the specific song that inspired it, the all-too-brief album is filled with cursory, seemingly unfinished musical sketches – as if there is more to the ongoing, enduring conversation about love that Harvey is merely starting, leaving the listener left to finish themselves.

Whenever Harvey invests more time with the songs, the emotions of the numbers swell and the tracks take on an added weight and significance. But a frustrating majority of the songs are fleeting, two minute excursions that are over before the poignancy of the track can fully sink in, ultimately serving as mere introductions to the grander, more expansive musical statements found on the remainder of the album. The hymn-like exaltation of opener ‘Praise The Earth (Wheels Of Amber And Gold)’ is revisited at the end of the record on ‘Praise The Earth (An Ephemeral Play),’ which reinforces the theme of impermanence that courses through these songs, as well as the transient, elusive power that love holds over us for brief spells before disappearing.

‘Glorious’ is an unreleased PJ Harvey original culled from some old tapes Mick discovered, and Polly’s ominous, Stories From The Sea-era guitar riff blends fluidly with their restrained vocals as the song gradually begins to soar. But even in flight the track remains rooted to these dark times, exuding a mournful quality that is only enhanced by the funereal instrumental that follows it, ‘Midnight On The Ramparts,’ featuring ghostly whistles that are redolent and rich. A Tom Waits-like take on Exuma‘s ‘Summertime In New York’ spiritedly picks up the pace of the record while also capturing the untamed heat of the warmer months in NYC.

‘When There’s Smoke (before)’ comes across as a hasty spoken word piece that announces the end of the first act as well as forming a lyrical bridge to ‘God Made The Hammer,’ which contains echoes of The Final Cut-period Pink Floyd, but the track never quite reaches the significance it is striving for. The gorgeous and moving ‘I Wish That I Were Stone’ fares much better, but again the track is so short (a mere minute-and-a-half) that the sentiments of the song never have a chance to fully settle and solidify, and the fragile emotions expressed remain only partially examined.

A truly haunting, moody version of Van Morrison‘s ‘The Way Young Lovers Do’ is laden with regret and longing, and forms the stirring centerpiece of the record. But it seems that Harvey could have dug even deeper into the heart of the familiar number, as his vocals just trail off as the song comes to an abrupt, plaintive end, leaving the rueful lyrical dialogue somewhat unfinished and the ending of the inconstant relationship fairly uncertain.

‘A Drop, An Ocean’ is an inconsequential, slight diversion, before the second act comes to a glorious end with an impassioned take on the Saints ‘The Story Of Love,’ which maintains the classic appeal of the original while undergoing Harvey’s assured reworking. He brings a fresh spirit to the track, aided by the full band arrangement that stands out boldly from the more understated approaches found throughout the rest of the record.

‘Where There’s Smoke (after)’ ushers in the final act with another minor detour, quickly leading as it does to Harvey’s stunning, dramatic take on Roy Orbison‘s pensive pop gem, ‘Wild Hearts (Run Out Of Time),’ which Mick renames optimistically as ‘Wild Hearts,’ suggesting that there is always more time for us to find a kindred soul in these uncertain times. ‘Fairy Dust’ is another lovely little number in the vein of ‘I Wish That I Were Stone,’ a stirring song that would be better served by being explored a bit more and given more time to express the insightful concepts that Harvey has only a moment to touch on. But there is more than enough genuine, heartfelt emotion and originality coursing through Four (Acts Of Love), with Mick Harvey proving himself yet again to have a tender touch when it comes to the delicate business of affairs of the heart.

Whereas previous Deerhunter records have seen Bradford Cox and his increasingly important associates push boundaries about as far as one can whilst still being recognisably an indie band, Monomania takes a different attitude to innovation. 

In terms of song structure, their sixth album is by far their most straightforward yet. Though the band are often at their best when left to build melodies and squall over long stretches that eventually result in dazzling payoffs, they here deliver a record full of three minute, verse-bridge-chorus tunes that are by and large loathe to take even the slightest of left turns. But within the confines they’ve set themselves, they’re making the most glorious racket of their careers. It’s as if this is a band so bored with pushing boundaries that they’ve decided instead to mock them from within.

The album’s very first lyric, “finding the fluorescence in the junk”, is particularly telling. Opener ‘Neon Junkyard’ exemplifies this idea of twisting and screwing otherwise normal songs in wrists made of noises. With its strummed acoustic guitar working through an uncharacteristically straightforward layout before becoming battered, it’s the sound of Deerhunter setting up confines for themselves and then going crazy within them, smacking their heads against the walls ‘til they start to see the stars. At times, it can be quite pretty – every instrument on the marvellous ‘Dream Captain’ sounds like it’s at its own party, and the penultimate ‘Nitebike’, which sees Cox alone with his guitar emoting more plaintively than perhaps ever before, is disarming in its exquisiteness.

Yet at others, it’s either deliberately grating (‘Leather Jacket II’s confrontational glam rock stomp feels a lot longer than its mere three minutes – it’s a trick they pull off better on the title cut), borderline creepy (the plucked guitar line on ‘Blue Agent’ sounds like it’s tiptoeing around the song, waiting to jump out on its unsuspecting chorus), or rather harrowing. Despite being devoid of the first third of Monomania’s signature fuzz, the tragic tale of an insane kid brother told in ‘T.H.M.’ is made all the more uneasy for being handled with a combination of jauntiness and frantic panting. Lots changes about Deerhunter, but one suspects part of the point of whatever they’re up to is that you’re not actually meant to feel entirely comfortable with it.

Its mood is all over the place, but that suits it – the only two tracks that sound similar to one another are placed side by side, which leads to ‘Sleepwalking’ and ‘Back To The Middle’ coming across as a forgettable, Deerhunter-by-numbers double blip. The scattergun approach to the rest of the record’s aesthetic is actually what makes it so much fun. Lockett Pundt’s sole contribution ‘The Missing’ is the album’s best song, a gloriously rich showcase of just how important he is to holding what might otherwise be a shambles together, whereas on ‘Pensacola’ Cox plays it simpler than ever, both sonically and lyrically (have you ever heard him sing a line like “This town ain’t given me nothin’ but bawlin’ and trouble”?), to deliver a goofball triumph.

If it’s particularly tempting to take certain statements made on Monomania as self referential, state of the union addresses of sorts,  it’s only because that’s how Cox delivers them. “In my head, there’s something rotting” he intones on the title track, “For a month / I was punk” he offers on closer ‘Punk (La Vie Antérieure)’. But though packed with trademark lyrical curiosities, it’s the sound of Monomania that’s its biggest departure. It might be a step towards something more conventional structurally, but it’s anything but a step back – for Deerhunter, any move in the direction of convention is a dip of the toes in to the unknown. It’s no wonder they make normal sound so weird.

One shouldn’t expect a metaphorical walk in the park from a Knife show. The siblings’ approach to the medium of performance has always been accompanied a certain Scandinavian guile and the ‘staging’ of dance music remains a central concern to The Knife as a live proposition.

That conundrum was tackled with a sense of parody and humour by fellow Swedes Air France and The Tough Alliance – the former veered mainly towards DJ sets while the latter resorted to simply playing back their tracks on the venue PA while projections, lip syncing and swinging baseball bats replaced any attempts to recreate their largely synthetic sounds.

So one shouldn’t try and appraise tonight’s show on a musical level although some skill may lie in the creation of toothsome arrangements that push the blister and pop of The Knife’s sound. It’s largely a moot point though considering the audio is delivered via a backing track and largely mimed vocals for the majority of the evening.

They’ve done this before of course and many have come prepared with that knowledge. Of those who don’t know, the surprise either turns to frustration (there are a few walkouts), resignation or joyful glee at the more conceptual elements on stage.

The band promised “a place, a scene, a moment” aligned to the titular intent of marmite long player Shaking the Habitual for the accompanying live experience and this tour comes come loaded with a manifesto that asserts “this is not every day” and a desire to break the audience out of “the habitual dance of the ordinary, the narratives of the normal”.

Thus the 3,00 strong Roundhouse audience is exorcised out of any metropolitan mid-week lethargy by a session of “Death Electro Emo Protest Aerobics” courtesy of an over-enthused instructor. As a prelude to the main event, it’s an entirely tongue-in-cheek gesture that goes some way to dictating the night’s mood. “I think we will show some humor in our live show…it has to be fun,” Dreijer-Anderson told SPIN earlier this year and at least no-one can accuse her of po-faced pretension.

After ‘Cherry on Top’ provides a cacophonous opener – slow burning until a full band of hooded figures line up for ‘Raging Lung ‘- we get Dreijer-Anderson’s voice operating at full power: a beautifully shrill husk in one moment, an enchanted melodic pipe in the next. But it’s the opening beats of ‘Without You My Life Would Be Boring’ that sees her (if indeed it really is the woman herself – no-one is really sure) take commend of the stage; a joyful, percussive-heavy troupe in glitter and face paint. She drops to her knees in front of them and an aerobicised tribalism shakes the Swede and her band all the way to the track’s end.

It’s a dynamic that permeates the rest the set – a selection of tracks heavy on Shaking the Habitual with a few entirely appropriate additions from the duo’s first three records. ‘One Hit’ strikes a lively note with some of the best onstage action of the night. ‘Networking’ finds a return to the stark lights, darkness and backing track motif of earlier Knife shows. ‘Got 2 Let U’, the one Deep Cuts song given an outing, is accompanied by a gilded projection that blurs those gender lines the siblings love to play around with in a way that’s both hilarious and preposterous.

A closing ‘Silent Shout’ goes some way to appeasing the ambivalent among tonight’s audience. Those at the front might be more forgiving of the backing track and stage antics but the cavernous Roundhouse struggles to accommodate the show’s intentions, especially for the further-back crowd. And what remains at the end is all about the subjective: tonight is an experiment of sorts and fans in thrall to the trebly electro-pop of the band’s 2001 self titled debut or Deep Cuts from two years later are visibly disappointed by the set choices and execution. If you were to claim tonight’s show as the worst thing you’d ever seen, that would be a perfectly valid opinion (and at £30 a ticket, many will). But some will claim the opposite, and they’re kind of right too.

Embrace the fun of the show, get lost in the ridiculousness and maybe you’ll be some way to getting it. Whatever it might be. Escape from the mundane? A bit of colour on a Wednesday night? Or just some frighteningly staged am-dram dancing? It’s all that and more. It’s a place where the Swedish duo feel like they were always heading and although the collision of the abstract and sensory struggles to connect at times, it remains on a basic level just very good fun.

Setlist

‘Cherry on Top’
‘Raging Lung’
‘Bird’
‘Without You My Life Would Be Boring’
‘A Tooth For An Eye’
‘One Hit’
‘Networking’
‘Wrap Your Arms Around Me’
‘Got 2 Let U’
‘Ready to Lose’
‘Full of Fire’
‘Stay Out Here’
‘Silent Shout’

Photo by Howard Melnyczuk

More photos of The Knife’s show here.

The big criticism that’s always faced Bibio is that he’s a one-trick pony, an artist with a lot of influences but little personality, a bookish student of navel-gazing music without much in the way of umph. In addressing that perception he scored serious acclaim with Ambivalence Avenue, an album that added a few strings to his bow while still retaining a familiar core. But then in 2011, with the curtain lifted and in the spotlight – a lot of people googled ‘kindle ad song’, after all – he managed to prove his naysayers right for entirely different reasons with the follow-up, the messy and too-far-stretched Mind Bokeh.

To find the exact time of death for Bibio’s critical honeymoon, you could do worse than looking at the four minutes and four seconds of the indulgent rock-star fantasy ‘Take Off Your Shirt’, his bloodless tribute to Thin Lizzy (!), which invites us to imagine him as a lusty rock star but is really only as convincing as a child clomping about in his dad’s shoes, windmilling on a tennis racket, and is just as awful as you can well imagine a Bibio song titled ‘Take Off Your Shirt’ might be.

For sensitive souls, such pratfalls require a change of course and so, as the self-titled-ish name suggests, Silver Wilkinson (like Bibio it’s the name of a fishing lure, and it shares his surname) is something like a reset, a reintroduction for everyone who wasn’t around for the three OK albums of rain-distressed, memory-bent folk he put out on Mush Records that took the unnerving modernism of Boards of Canada and plonked it somewhere out in the home counties. Tracks like the very Bibio-ishly titled ‘The First Daffodils’, ‘Dye the Water Green’, and ‘Sycamore Silhouetting’ make up the bulk of the album, all wandering in the same pleasant-enough territory of intertwining, beatific-yet-melancholy acoustic guitar; pastoral strings, faded field recordings and wan, sun-kissed vocals that bring to mind contextless, perhaps half-invented childhood memories with nary an ill-judged power chord in sight.

And Bibio is very good at mining this kind of shared cultural nostalgia, taking the kitsch of previous generations and imbuing it with a kind of mystical aura. Listening to ‘Raincoats’ it’s hard not to imagine kids ducking for cover during a summer shower in 1978 when Bibio sings “Trees like umbrellas / The rain trickles my soul”. Similarly, some ad executive is probably musing over the ecstatic nursery-rhyme and British summertime vibes of ‘À tout à l’heure‘ –  ”Count in twos / Count in fours / Spin your arms / Spin your eyes” – for their Thompson Holidays account. And, away from folk-y noodlings, album highlight ‘Look at Orion!’ sounds like Crystal Castles as influenced by BBC Radiophonic Workshop soundtracked public information films about space travel. Nonetheless the albums blots always lie outside of that faded folk-ish mode. Tracks like the John Carpenter-esque ‘Business Park’ and ‘You’, the now familiar Dilla/Stones Throw impression, break up the rainy melancholy that dominates but aren’t as convincing, feeling more like conspicuously ill-fitting outfits he’s not quite comfortable in.

Silver Wilkinson is a solid return to (mostly) familiar, territory. Not quite winding the clock back to his 2005 debut, but somewhere closer to it than the eclectic, synth-y territory of Mind Bokeh. Where you stand on that kind of amnesiac approach will depend a whole lot on how you already feel about the guy’s music (and it’s hard to imagine fans of his pastoral brand of hauntology demanding new stuff for the sake of it). Even with the doyens of his style, Boards of Canada, returning in the very immediate future for competition, a narrow, modest auteurship rather than a clear album-to-album progression might be the order of the day for the Bibio project – which is refreshing at a time when schizophrenic reinvention is expected as a standard. Besides, if the yottabytes of information Google have on us means they’re right about the future, we’ll all still be playing Lovers Carvings ten years from now – on Ukuleles.

After a short sharp shock of a set from Say Lou Lou (prior to their Best Fit headliner at Madame JoJo’s a couple of hours later), the launch soirée for Swedish festival, Way Out West, in London sees quirkess, Lune, take to the stage.

Proving that this one-off evening celebrating Gothenburg’s finest summer outing is not all about the Scandinavian canapés and cider, Linnéa Martinsson (for it is she!) is here to remind us why Sweden has such an unquestionably impressive music heritage.

Her demure demeanour is mixed with a knowing edge and a half-smile that betrays confidence cut with vulnerability. She is accompanied on stage by a laptop loaded with pre-recorded music and a hippie-Shaman dude, Mårten Spångberg, who – apart from a bit of acoustic guitar playing on a couple of the quieter tracks – limits his contribution to ambient lighting. This he creates by shining a flashlight on various objects, such as gift-bags and silver mixing bowls. It’s bizarre, it’s distracting, but hey – it’s part of the Lune stage set-up and, you know what? Ultimately, it doesn’t take away from the fact that Martinsson is a captivating performer with a very strong set of songs and you soon learn to ignore the somewhat unnecessary stuff happening around her and focus, instead, on the music.

Lune’s voice, at points, is almost startlingly similar to Bjork‘s and her songs are often characterised by a pulsating electronic beat layered with melodious instrumentation. From set-opener, ‘Falling’, through ‘Boys’n'Roses’ to recent single, ‘Girls With Bangs’, she grows in confidence and the crowd becomes more and more smitten.

‘Lori Grimes’ finds Lune and Spångberg delivering a beautiful guitar ballad, where enough breathing space is given to the vocals, and a languid fade then connects smoothly with the equally-notable, ‘Rain’, before leading to the tempo-rejuvenating, ‘That Day’.

Even if you are not sure what to make of this act at the outset, by the time closing number, ‘Close Dance’, is halfway through its stage time, you can’t help but feel taken in. This performance certainly manages to whet our appetites for Way Out West, where we hope to see and hear more of Martinsson.

Setlist

Based in old London town, Standish/Carlyon are a splinter cell of Australian rock outfit Devastations, formed of members Tom Carlyon and Conrad Standish. However, they’ve been estranged from Oz for a long time now, soaking up the scenes in Berlin and the UK, and using what they’ve picked up along the journey to create something far removed from their days in Devastations. This is futuristic dub-pop, dark, brooding and full of synthesised wizardry that harks back to the soundtracks of ’80s sci-fi flicks and the bedroom producers of South LDN.

They’ve made waves with tracks like ‘Nono/Yoyo’, a blog favourite with deep new wave revival flavours of Wild Nothing and lurid, mutated bass riffs. It has set off signals everywhere, with people falling over themselves to fawn over the pair – and quite rightly. The astral beauty is captivating; it’s a sonic fractal with echoes of echoes reverberating around Standish’s celestial falsetto. Popular cut ‘Subliminally’ follows suit – you’re instantly lost in a labyrinth of effects, and even the metronomic industrial percussion (which bears an odd similarity to ‘Closer‘) can’t drag you back to a safe place. Their sound is all ebbs and flows – in some respects it’s a bit homogenous, everything sort of blends together – and their ideas are presented in terms of structure and dynamics rather than through lyrics or melodies.

What the duo excel at, is being irresistibly sexy. By having a sound that tends to morph lethargically, rather than jerk with reckless abandon, the sound fills whatever space it’s given. It’s very fluid. Like Massive Attack or Portishead, who are adept at moulding sonic lust, the noises are bass heavy, full of ethereal synths and lit by red bulbs. Mostly, Deleted Scenes has got a simple, easy-to-follow (ahem…) rhythm, and a lurid, thick texture which envelops you with ease like a spider capturing a fly in it’s web. The hazy vocals only heighten the sensuality – the lyrics tend to be masked underneath layers of production, so really all you hear is Standish moaning and groaning and making passionate noises.

’2 5 1 1′ is one of the best examples on the LP of their tantric aural ability (pun very much intended). There are sparse, distant handclaps and rumbling bass vibrations. The synths are brooding and John Carpenter-esque, evoking a kind of nervous excitement that leads to fumbly tremors. ‘Gucci Mountain’ has Standish channelling a distorted Bowie. It’s dripping in the pitter-patter of maudlin keys and howling gale samples. Where Daft Punk make a sort of glamorous, frivolous soundtrack for the bedroom, and Ratatat own a drugged-out carnal bliss, Standish/Carlyon weave a more intense, ignore-the-world sort of music.

Whether they’ve intended to indulge in this sort of style deliberately or not isn’t entirely known but it would be quite an impressive accident if they didn’t. Deleted Scenes, regardless of whether the pair’s intentions are pure or not, is a stunning debut foray into the world of electronic noises. There are plenty of standout moments to be discovered here, and save for the fact perhaps it’s a bit too seamless, there’s really not much you can find fault with. With the no-holds-barred sexuality and melange of ’80s nods/electronic effects, this is sure to find a place on many end of year lists.

With the pair being such hot commodities, it’s a surprise that this third instalment surfaced at all. Their upcoming third long-player, snappily entitled Volume 3, perhaps unsurprisingly, follows on seamlessly from Volume 1 and Volume 2. It’s not much of an advancement in terms of theme or style or sound – there’s slightly more of a ’50s/’60s lean, and the production is slightly slicker – but on the whole, it may as well be the third disc of what is essentially one album released over five years. That’s not a bad thing, by the way.

‘I’ve Got Your Number, Son’ is polished ’60s pop, full of doe-eyed sheen and cooing backing singers – it verges on the twee side, but She & Him always have. These are modern love songs, but there’s more eloquence and subtlety (part of the reason it sounds so dated), and not one reference to doing rudeys. It’s all about the tickle-fights, the staring at each other until your eyes shrivel up and all the lovey-dovey things that are great if you’re a participant, but sickening if you’re a spectator. ‘I Could’ve Been Your Girl’ sounds unmistakably like an oldie, with glorious melodies and sweeping string surges. M. Ward’s guitar has a lo-fi, surfy tinge, but on the whole it’s strict smooth pop and a fantastic base for the vocals to launch from.

Everything slots together nicely on the LP. There’s barely anything out of place. Every lump or bump has been ironed out during the production process. Volume 3 Emulates ’50s/’60s pop so well, it’s all too easy to completely forget that this is a record released half a century later; Deschanel’s stunning vocal performance is effervescent and dainty, and she does a brilliant job of articulating quaint passion and that iconic ’50s whimsy. Ward’s contributions are often light, positive indie-pop sounds, and even the more solemn lyrical moments are filled with optimism. The way he strums his six-string compliments the vocals swimmingly.

One of the most notable detractions from the strict mid-20^th Century aura is a cover of both the English and French versions of Blondie‘s ‘Sunday Girl‘ (Deschanel’s impression of Debbie Harry is spot-on, if a little restrained). There’s less New Wave-y/punk-flecked guitars, instead Ward opts for rock’n'roll jangles and twee handclaps; there’s less bite, but a much stronger doo-wop timbre. There’s also a cover of Karen Chandler‘s 1952 hit, ‘Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me‘. It’s a sublime, swooning acoustic ballad of simple love, adorned with grooving bass licks, broad strings and tranquil guitar riffing.

There’ll be plenty of fawning over this album for the sheer fact Deschanel is in it: the indie darling and Internet fodder incites biased joy wherever she treads, partly due to her spearheading the ‘adorkable’ movement. People may be falling over themselves to say that this is a perfect album, which it’s not, but they’re in the right ballpark. It is a good record, brimming with lavish, romantic nostalgipop that will rekindle your love for Grease, neckerchiefs and pomade. Sandra Dee would have this on repeat, that’s a certainty.

Naming livelier bands than Low is easy. It’s… well, it’s pretty much all of them. But lovelier ones? That’s a struggle.

The Duluth, Minnesota three piece are now at a stage in their career where they only play places that befit said loveliness. Their trips to London haven’t included a toilet circuit venue in many a year, with them now a regular feature on bills at places like the Royal Festival Hall, tonight’s home The Barbican, and in all likelihood private audiences with the Queen at Buckingham Palace. Well, they wouldn’t seem out of place.

Despite their increasingly grandiose venue choices, Low’s sound remains as tantalisingly subtle as ever. Alan Sparhawk plays guitar through a miniscule amplifier, Mimi Parker’s drum kit is as sparse as her hitting of it, and their audience is so hushed and attuned to what it is Low do that one wonders if the pair even need to approach a microphone when they sing; us lot would gladly just listen a bit more closely if they chose to ditch them. It’s this delicacy to their playing that makes them such an enticing live prospect – what they create is so fragile that one stares on baffled at how it doesn’t crack apart under the slightest scrutiny.

This isn’t the case with Low on record, or at least not all the time. LPs such as the Dave Fridmann-produced The Great Destroyer and new effort The Invisible Way (helmed by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy) pack a considerable punch, yet when stripped back to just guitar, drums, vocals, bass and occasional piano, they shine in virtue of being comparatively skeletal.  The Great Destroyer provides us with three tunes tonight, a menacing pairing of ‘Monkey’ and ‘Pissing’, and an unplanned encore inclusion for fan-requested beauty ‘When I Go Deaf’, but it’s The Invisible Way that we get to know best. No less than nine tracks, almost half the set list, are brand new Low numbers.

The reason nobody seems to mind is that their most recent record is one of their best for a while, with songs like the opening ‘Plastic Cup’ (which contains the first of two uses of the word “piss” this evening – really, guys) and utterly majestic ‘So Blue’ sounding like sisters to more time-honoured Low classics such as the ever-beautiful and deceptively sinister ‘In Metal’, despite their being born of quite different bands, decades apart.  The main change has been in personnel, with new member Steve Garrington adding delicate piano flourishes and a muscular bass guitar grounding to songs that would otherwise be in danger of flying away, such is their gentile splendour.

Low seem happy to be playing, which is great, because that can’t be said for all of their shows. Tonight however, they seem in a generous mood, and genuinely touched at our esteem for their performance. Though it’s heavy on new material, when their set makes pit stops in their back catalogue, their selections are expertly picked, and clearly tailored to long term fans (‘Soon’ from Secret Name, ‘Words’ from their debut I Could Live In Hope). These guys seem happy and humbled, despite playing to audiences this reverent as standard now. Smiling suits Low; though their tales of murder and piss are plentiful, when you walk away from one of their gigs, it’s their loveliness that’s most prominently on your mind.

Photograph by Howard Melnyczuk. See full gallery here.

What do we talk about when we talk about Vampire Weekend?

Initially so much of the discussion focused on the band’s effete image and what many saw as that image’s uncomfortable marriage to Afropop. The undeniable quality of Contra, the band’s second album, pushed the distracted talk about signifiers of privilege into the background, and now, save for the vocalising in the chorus of ‘Ya Hey’ and the ‘Graceland’ bounce of rubbery bass and drums on ‘Everlasting Arms,’ the band’s African influences are nowhere to be found either. So what now?

On their new album, Modern Vampires of The City, Vampire Weekend sound like a band in complete control. The band’s performance feels precise, the production is clean, and Ezra Koenig’s phrasing is as crisp and careful as the melodies. But like the Afropop and the phony controversy of rock music made by rich kids, the punk energy rush that gave the first two albums’ their fizz is missing. That lack of wildness makes Modern Vampires of The City, while always thoughtful and often beautiful, the least captivating of their three albums.

The band’s songwriting is still strong. ‘Step,’ the album’s first single, is a gorgeous, light sounding thing that still retains a gravity through Koenig’s slightly downbeat performance. Koenig’s voice carries the melody of the verses over simple drums and bass rhythms, before it’s joined by a pretty harpsichord on the choruses. When the band first leaked ‘Diane Young’ alongside ‘Step,’ it felt like ‘Step’s’ B-side, a throwaway experiment, but it’s a grower and eventually we realise it’s Modern Vampires  of The City’s most out there track – and, on an album lacking fire, eventually becomes a stand-out. Another highlight, the stomping ‘Unbelievers,’ captures the band at its most straightforward.

Some people have compared Koenig’s vocals on the song to an Elvis impersonator, but if there is any truth to that comparison, they must be thinking of the Elvis of ‘A Little Less Conversation.’ To me, it sounds like the band’s modern, twisted take on Springsteen: A honking synth gives the song a propulsion that builds until the drums and guitar threaten to ‘Wipeout,’ while Koenig’s voice gets more modulated and abstracted with each repeated “baby.”

Modern Vampires of The City is not without its sins. It lacks songs that really stick with you, or at least lacks songs that are as catchy as those found on their stellar first two albums. The album is frontloaded and later tracks, like ‘Finger Back’ and ‘Worship You,’ pass by pleasantly but without making a deep impression. ‘Hudson’ is a crawling sinister affair and the album’s only real misstep: Koenig delivers his lines a little archly, as if they were riddles, over a mischievous bassline while drums hammer out a martial rhythm and spooky strings or their synth stand-ins haunt the background.

As ‘I Think Ur a Contra’ closed out Contra on a brief, quiet note, this record concludes with ‘Young Lion.’ After a warped sounding recording of piano opens the song, Koenig sings “You take your time” in multi-tracked harmony before the piano returns. It’s pretty and, just as ‘I Think Ur a Contra’ mirrored Contra’s warmth, ‘Young Lion’ is appropriately uneasy sounding. It just isn’t as indelible as its predecessor.

Koenig’s lyrics are knotty, allusive and often seem cleverly nonsensical at first. Yet, on repeat listens Modern Vampires of The City reveals itself as an agnostic’s attempt to puzzle out meaning in a world where conventions have fallen away or lost their magic. It’s melancholy, nostalgic for the certainty of youth or, rightly or wrongly, the past. Koenig is engaged with the world in a serious way that doesn’t preclude fun or playfulness. And even as the band’s sound has evolved, the music remains immaculately crafted and distinctively its own. Those aren’t easy tricks and, whether it reaches the heights of the band’s previous work or not, they make Modern Vampires of The City a pleasure.

It’s with a rare urgency that post-punk foursome Savages bounded onto the scene, eliciting almost universal applause and a low rumble of fevered whispers. There was barely a shred of sound available online last year, but their name was banded around every which way by those in positions of power and anyone discussing ‘next big things’.

Methodically selecting venues for brutish, barbed performances which piqued nationwide attention, the LDN-ers have been dragged kicking and screaming into 2013 by the hype machine; part of a guitar-based class of acts due to graduate this year, the stakes have never been higher for this wave of musicians. Palma Violets stumbled with a divisive, sloppy first record at the opening hurdles, and before we get the likes of Haim and Deap Vally this summer, Savages line up to be the second of this new breed in front of the judge’s panel. Will they make it to the next round? Damn right they will.

It’s common knowledge that their overall sound isn’t the most forward-thinking – Velvet Undergound, Siouxsie and Joy Division are all blatantly namechecked – though their delivery is flawless. They’ve admitted that you’ve probably heard this all before, but that’s beside the point, as for starters musicians are hard-pressed to be completely unique nowadays (whether it’s even possible is an endless debate), but the more important factor is their message.

They’re a group with a mission, with opinions to communicate and ideals to preach. They stand up for injustice and aim to change perceptions via “Violence, domestic things and having a masculine view on feminine issues.” Perhaps the noises they’ve manufactured, although thoroughly entertaining, are derivative, but the charisma Savages ooze is hypnotising.

Silence Yourself is a collection of no-nonsense, 0% fat post-punk. It’s embellished with snarling yowls of rage, steamroller percussion and despondent guitars, but there’s nothing that seems indulgent or ‘tacked-on’. Even the Opening Night sample intro to ‘Shut Up’ (they’re not subtle about what they want from you) feels necessary, even the saxophone solo on dangerously sensual send-off ‘Marshal Dear’ is vital. The production wondertwins Rodaidh McDonald and Johnny Hostile are no doubt partly responsible for the streamlined result on the record.

Savages compel you to sit and focus on their music when you listen to it – frankly it’s hard not to – but it’s something they hammer home nonetheless, and not just on plastic; they’ve even gone as far as to ban cameras at their live shows. They’re passionate about focus and the value of silence, something evident in their sound. Even amongst distorted flails and rampant bass of tracks like ‘She Will’ or ‘Strife’, it still feels lean and skeletal and distant, made possible largely due to Beth’s reverb-laced howl.

Rerecorded breakthrough cut ‘Husbands’ is still a riveting slab of descending riffs and chugging picked bass. There are paranoid, hushed blurts from Beth: “Oh God, I wanna get rid of it…” through a myriad of shrieking axes, every bit as brutal as their moniker implies. Empowering ode ‘City’s Full’ is full of yelps and steely riffs; raw bass and muted chords captain the sonic voyage as it careens through haunted, bolshy choruses pining for fiery love based on avoiding apparent ‘perfection’: “I love the stretchmarks on your thighs/ I love the wrinkles around your eyes.”

Silence Yourself is hardly a humble effort – from anyone else you’d probably be hearing warning bells as you pick up the record; the cover’s austere poem/manifesto includes the line ‘If the world would shut up/even for a while/perhaps/we would start hearing.’ With anyone else this early in their career, you’d laugh right back to wherever you bought it from with receipt in hand – but Savages own a gravitas, a brooding confidence and effortless cool, that no matter how cynical or wary of pretentiousness you are, will be suck you in. It’s not often a band will hold you hostage with cover art, a list of demands, but you’d be a damned fool not to pay the ransom to Savages.

What sets Little Boots‘ second album, Nocturnes, apart from her debut, Hands, is exactly this point. Hands was actually brilliant and quite unfairly underrated but, with Victoria Hesketh’s former label, Atlantic, arranging for her to work with lots of different people on it, the record was a bit of a hodge-podge of influences and styles and worked more as a collection of singles (it should be noted that there was plenty of material to choose from on that front though).

By comparison, with Nocturnes you get an album that operates on several levels. It has strong singles – oh god, does it have strong singles! – but they also fit into the grander scheme of its disco manifesto and the whole thing flows smoothly and neatly as a singular piece of work, from start to finish.

Producer Tim Goldsworthy is the man responsible for this achievement and his input ensures that Nocturnes‘ ten songs sit more than comfortably alongside one another and achieve the dual feat of sounding old-school and current at the same time.

Opening cut, ‘Motorway‘, combines moody and cinematic undertones with a shy dance sensibility and a cracking chorus. It’s a track that builds and builds and, ultimately, stays in your head insistently. Next up, driven by an Italo-piano and brimming with hooks, ‘Confusion’ finds Little Boots repeating a warning: “Never lie to me again/ never lie to me again/ never lie to me again/ never lie to me again”. It’s as catchy as they come and leads nicely to current single, ‘Broken Record’, which is – again – a song that builds progressively and, in its last minute, injects robotica into the electronica and erupts into a superb finale.

The 2011 single, ‘Shake’, remains as fresh as it sounded when it first came out. Said to have been the blue-print for the direction of Nocturnes, it slots elegantly inbetween ‘Broken Record’ and – what will hopefully be a future single – ‘Beat Beat’. The latter is an instantly memorable highlight and makes a worthy substitute for Little Boots’ recent single, ‘Headphones’, which sadly didn’t make it onto the album.

Other mentionables include ‘Crescendo’, which you’ll be singing along to by the second listen, and quieter number, ‘All For You’. While slowing things down somewhat towards the end of the record, ‘All For You’ nevertheless manages beautifully to hold attention in the lead-up to the dance explosion of album closer, ‘Satellites’.

If there was a real prospect of a proper summer over here this year, there’d be nothing stopping us from predicting Nocturnes as, potentially, the soundtrack to Summer 2013. Either way, it’s a foot-tappingly bundle of disco-pop that is not ashamed of its influences and refuses to bore for even the shortest of moments.

Rilo Kiley‘s split, back when guitarist Blake Sennett finally confirmed it in July 2011, surely didn’t come as a surprise to anyone. His working relationship with Jenny Lewis, perhaps inevitably, had collapsed under the weight of the failure of its romantic counterpart; he cited “deception, disloyalty and greed” as key factors for the band’s demise. If, indeed, he really did feel as bitter as his comments suggested, you could probably understand why; his and Lewis’ post-Kiley careers have certainly followed markedly different trajectories to this point.

I was on a train to Leeds, to see Bright Eyes play, when the news invaded my Twitter feed; as fate would have it, Lewis was supporting them, playing songs from her (excellent) collaboration with her current boyfriend, Johnathan Rice. For me, at least, the spectre of Rilo Kiley hung over their set that night, partly because I’d realised that this was now about as close as I’d ever get to seeing them (Kiley drummer Jason Boesel was part of the Jenny & Johnny backing band) and partly because the blunt nature of Sennett’s statement had left a sour taste in the mouth.

I didn’t think it was possible for a band to go out the way Rilo Kiley had, with what is probably best termed an acrimonious whimper – it was hardly LCD at Madison Square Garden. There was mention of a rarities collection to round things off formally, but given the collaboration that would necessitate between a clearly-opposed Sennett and Lewis, it didn’t seem a realistic prospect.

How wrong I was; RKives’ realisation suggests a thawing of hostilities in more recent months, allowing us to focus once again on the Lewis-Sennett partnership, rather than the Lewis-Sennett relationship. The first six tracks, all original and unreleased previously, provide the major point of discussion. I wasn’t really sure what to expect – how fleshed-out would they be? My heart was hoping for finished material that had been gathering dust, but my head was telling me to expect little more than glorified demos.

It’s pleasing, then, to report that it’s pretty much the former; the tracks are musically diverse, with the band in various guises, but what they all share, and possess in abundance, is polish. After many listens, I genuinely believe ‘It’ll Get You There’ can sit comfortably alongside the very best cuts from the Rilo Kiley catalogue; it apparently came from the sessions for the band’s poppiest, most commercially-viable effort, Under the Blacklight, but certainly wouldn’t have fit on that record – it’s about as heavy as the band have ever been, with stormy guitars underpinned by dramatic vocal work from Lewis. It immediately follows opener ‘Let Me Back In’, which really couldn’t be any more at odds with it: A gorgeous acoustic number, with Lewis on more typical, honeyed form, and there’s a kind of playful innocence in her voice, largely absent from her solo albums, that marks it out as a Rilo Kiley song.

‘Runnin’ Around’ comes over as a nicely-struck compromise; it’s a pop song that wouldn’t have been out of place on Blacklight, but features more traditional Kiley guitar work than most of the other tracks on that record. ‘All the Drugs’ rounds off the collection of Blacklight­-era material, and sounds like a gentler cousin of the band’s biggest hit, ‘Portions for Foxes’ – by no means a bad thing.

The remaining two original efforts aren’t quite as engaging; they definitely don’t sound as if they’ve followed the band’s tried-and-tested formula as closely as those initial four. The country-tinged ‘Bury, Bury, Bury Another’, underscored by slide guitar, sounds more like an offcut from Lewis’ first solo record with the Watson Twins, whilst you can almost hear listeners groaning as Sennett turns in his obligatory lead vocal on ‘Well, You Left’; his voice bears superficial resemblance to Elliott Smith‘s, but lacks much of the subtlety and nuance that made Smith’s so arresting, and the awkward shoehorning-in of American Football-esque trumpets is certainly no help.

Fleshing out RKives is a slew of B-sides, which, typically, are a mixed bag, from the sublime – ‘American Wife’s tale of frustrated-housewifery, ‘Patiently’s dual vocals over messy guitars – to the ridiculous – a remix of Blacklight cut ‘Dejalo’, inexplicably featuring Too $hort. For the most part, though, we’re firmly into fans-only territory here, although the inclusion of the charming ‘The Frug’ to close, the debut single plucked from The Initial Friend EP, is an inspired touch.

Whilst I couldn’t really recommend RKives as an ideal introduction to Rilo Kiley, it nonetheless, intentionally or otherwise, serves as a neat summation of the band’s career. Like so much of their previous output, it’s an incredibly bittersweet listen, but this time it’s less about Lewis’ wistful reflections and more to do with rueing what might have been if they’d continued; those first four cuts hint at a genuinely superb record having been in the works pre-split. Far from providing the closure fans were likely hoping for, RKives raises plenty more ‘whys’ and ‘what-ifs’; for a band who, lyrically, dealt so often with feelings of insecurity and uncertainty, it is, sadly, a fitting epitaph.

Who runs the world? Beyonce. Or at least the world in which her fans live, giving it a population of millions. 

Before she’s even appeared on stage, she’s already been granted three rapturous receptions, via whoops for the advert for her perfume Fever, a Mexican wave approving of her patronage of Pepsi cola, and an appearance in a video for Chime for Change where she makes an impassioned plea for a better future for young girls that has some of her admirers starting to well up. To these people, Beyonce is far more than a singer – she is a woman of otherworldly perfection. The fact that she occasionally sings amazing songs is mere icing on the cake.

This may seem dismissive of her considerable musical talent, but actually, you’ve got to admit that thinking of Beyonce as more than a singer is only accurate. When she emerges on a platform from beneath the stage straight in to ‘Run The World (Girls)’, nobody’s first thought is “I love this song!”.  It’s a shared gasp of recognition, a communal wonder that Beyonce – Beyonce! – is even here. Her stardom is so huge it takes a while to focus on her music, which is fine given how much else there is to distract you – the costume changes, the dancers, the floating video screens, Beyonce’s insistence on accompanying everything she does with a vigorous shake of her barely concealed derriere. It’s impossible not to be entertained, enthralled even, despite the fact that the music at times seems entirely secondary to whatever else it is that’s going on.

Beyonce does ballads and bangers like no other. Her vocal prowess on the former and show-womanship on the latter are unbeatable, but her more mid tempo numbers would be close to forgettable if they weren’t adorned with pyrotechnics, the perpetual choreographed chucking of one another in the air and elongated video interludes that thread the whole Mrs Carter Show World Tour together like a musical production, but only in a West End theatre kind of sense. Even pointing out slight chinks in her armour seems harsh given her talents, but the crowd around me seem to agree – even if they’d never utter the words – that there are a handful too many of these moments, instances where many of us think to ourselves, ‘yes, I will have a little sit down’.  In such times, nobody’s bored, as the visual spectacle is still overwhelming. But neither are they dancing.

OK, when Beyonce’s at her worst, she’s still pretty good. But when she’s at her best?  Holy shit. I’ve heard the ‘this side make some noise/that side make some noise’ thing countless times, but the response has never hurt my ears before. I’ve seen The Flaming Lips on enough occasions to know what a glitter cannon does, but never have one’s contents filled my entire field of vision. I’ve just never seen a woman turn a crowd on, in every sense, to quite these levels.  Through a cheesy but yeah, kinda empowering ‘Halo’ and a brutally forceful ‘Why Don’t You Love Me?’, we’re out of our seats, and then in other people’s seats, and then we’ve all completely lost our seats. And by the time she flies – she actually flies – from one end of the venue to the other for a remarkable ‘Irreplaceable’, gliding back over to the front for a double whammy of ‘Crazy In Love’ and ‘Single Ladies’ so powerful it borders on transcendence, I’m signing myself up to the religion of people who think this woman can do anything.

For me, it’s Beyonce’s best music that makes all the other stuff about her so notable, not vice versa. Few other pop artists ever reach these heights, and they don’t even have to deal with the hassle of having to be bloody Beyonce every day. Michael Jackson did, sure, and at its best this show is probably most reminiscent of the stunning footage I’ve seen of him touring Bad. But look at how that turned out. Beyonce, thankfully, isn’t showing any signs of similar impending insanity. She still seems curiously humble, even when she’s literally looking down on us, suspended in the sky. For all her myriad talents, being able to seem like one of us at the same time as being not of this world is surely amongst her greatest achievements.

Sometimes sparks can fly in the most improbable of places. Tonight, Middlesbrough’s Westgarth Social Club, the not-so-secret gem in the town’s live circuit, is the unlikely host for two of the most in-demand bands of the moment, creating a little pocket of excitement on a drab Wednesday night. Small town inactivity paired with fingers being firmly on the right pulse means the room is packed out while a cautious but palpable anticipation hangs in the air.

Peak District blues punk duo- surely the least feasible start to a sentence ever – Drenge are first to prove their mettle, and they almost manage it. Making up in enthusiasm and ridiculously excellent names – Rory Loveless – what they, in fairness, lack in true originality, the young pups match no frills riffs with fresh faced commitment to sweet, if slightly underwhelming effect. A polite teen rebellion via The Black Keys which doesn’t have to tidy its room and can create a racket when it bloody well wants.

Temples, however, are the real reason for the swiftly rising temperatures round here, not least because of some particularly obscenely attractive band members. But since we’re here to talk about the much more disappointingly proper business of music and not shallow aesthetic gratification, we’d better get back to the task in hand. The psychadelia revivalists from Kettering have certainly been causing a stir of late, validated by the likes of Johnny Marr, Noel Gallagher and recent gig buddies, Suede. Racking up quite the roster of indie heavyweights can’t hurt a band in its burgeoning stages and they’re quietly keen- almost too quiet- to show why.

Opener ‘The Golden Throne’ is organ heavy and hook laden while ‘Keep in the Dark’ is a bluesy, stomping number which rolls into a swooning, romantic chorus. Singer, James Bagshaw, holds on to a knowing remoteness throughout, and fosters a mysterious allure, probably by virtue of knowing the value in shutting up. The band go on to play ‘Prisms’ which is a paisley printed daydream while their debut single, ‘Shelter Song’ is pleasingly trippy and an obvious standout track. The songs are hypnotic and unconcerned with urgency, softly seductive and touching on hidden depths.

Faithful in their intentions, the set speaks of a band with understated confidence and ability who know exactly the context they want to fit in and the importance of a cohesive vision. While it’s fuzzily nostalgic and experimental, they clearly want to invoke blotter paper mind-bends and wildly dilated pupils but they might just be too clean around the edges and are probably more of a friendly magic eye picture for now. It may simply be shy inexperience but their cool detachment and reserved delivery leaves the atmosphere lacking somewhat, though they manage to keep the attention of the crowd.

Entering the post-MGMT music scene at a time when the likes of Tame Impala are causing real waves, this is far more grounded stuff but it’s no less valid. Judging by tonight’s performance, Temples are a really good band with the potential to be really great. Not quite a trip, but they well could be.

Photograph taken by Sebastien Dehesdin at The Lexington, 29/04/30. See Full Gallery here.

2011′s Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam was a definitive statement for Obaro Ejimiwe, better known under his Ghostpoet guise. As debut records go, he couldn’t have really had done it better: it was a phenomenal effort combining elements of British grime and hip-hop, as well as the sparse electronica of James Blake or Burial. It scored him a Mercury nod, support slots with the likes of Metronomy and appearances at festivals nationwide. Two years on he returns with his second full-length, Some Say I So I Say Light, ready to succumb to the gaping maw of the hype machine. With such a compelling première outing, will he crumble under the pressure of delivering something that lives up to expectations?

Accompanying Ejimiwe’s unique vocal style, which bears similarities to operatic sprechgesang (it lays upon the border of spoken-word, rap and singing), is an arsenal of talented guest vocalists. On ‘Dial Tones’, one of the standout cuts on the record, a morose, strung-out Lucy Rose offers her brittlest vocals to the fray, contrasting the wired-ness from Ejimiwe. It’s a lonely 4am anthem with desolate synth creaks and other gizmos buzzing like the background noise of a city at night.

Woodpecker Wooliams contributes to ‘Meltdown’, the lead single, for an impeccable chorus ripe for a dancefloor-ready remix. The lyrics tell a tale of the aftermath of a broken relationship, “You and me weren’t meant to be, and someone, somewhere knew it from the start.” It’s brutal in its honest account of torn victims and the unstoppable rifts that occur during the denouement of love. Other top notch guests include Dave Okume, Charles Hayward and Gwilym Gold.

Blurring the lines between genres has always been Ejimiwe’s forte, fusing a chilled-out electronic sound with hip-hop beats and semi-rapped lyrics. It’s a kind of late-night sound he’s nurtured, and on Some Say I So I Say Light, he’s gone even further with experimenting – injecting orchestral flourishes, woodwind waves and ’90s porn-groove guitars. At times, futuristic R&B rears its head, and just as he begins galloping in one direction, he lurches towards somewhere new.

The tone remains pretty consistent throughout, and often the pace is carried over from track to track, but it’s his variety of instrumentation that keeps us interested in spite of the structural/temporal safety. It would’ve been nice to experience some differentiation in terms of overall ‘feel’, but his sharp, poignant lyrics and beautiful noises keep us enthralled nonetheless.

‘Plastic Bag Brain’ is home to earwormy country-rock riffs and ticking hi-hats. The music grinds in the depths as Ejimiwe’s voice floats, almost disconnected, the sounds mimicking his words: “I am here/ Standing by the river/ Head to toe in shivers/ I wonder where you are.”

‘Comatose’ is all muffled percussion, howling wind pads and sacrosanct organ melodies. Breathy, strained vocals gasp over the top, with no effort made to conceal the topic: “I feel like the whole world has turned its back on me”. In the final moments of the album, uplifting conga noises and luscious string washes saunter into the mix, alleviating the hopeless (as in devoid of hope) mood.

Ghostpoet had a genuinely tough task ahead of him at the start of this record. After such a successful debut, it would’ve been all to easy to buckle and bow out, or churn out something overwrought and/or naff. However, considering the enormity of the task ahead, he’s prevailed, crafting a collection of songs that push boundaries and contend as great post-hip-hop. There is plenty to get excited about here – perhaps he could have changed up the tone a tad more, but the only negatives are mere minor gripes. It’s might not quite exceed Peanut Butter Blues…, but it certainly isn’t worse.

This is a pleasant plateau he’s found himself on, and it’s a perfect launching platform for further, more avante-garde endeavours.

Zach Yudin, the main man behind Secretly Canadian signees Cayucas, has bided his time well. The Cayucos, CA native’s surf-inspired debut features songs that first caught waves under his previous recording moniker – Oregon Bike Trails – but have been reworked and reheated with Yudin helming a five-piece band for debut album Bigfoot.

The band wear their influences on short sleeves without subtle gestures or sleights of hand. Bigfoot sounds like sixties surf rock refracted through an indie-pop prism and it isn’t a trick of the light. Alongside vintage vinyl samples, a spectrum of influences from Beach Boys and The Tornadoes to Local Natives and Vampire Weekend bubble under and boil over to varying degrees. Dandy gradations of guitar and drums, layers of twiddled percussion with chimes and chants, oohs and ehs, create a happy-clappy, stutteringly dulcet melee.

At its best, Bigfoot could be the San Luis Obispo County equivalent of Metronomy‘s The English Riviera, transporting the average urbanite to a sunny coastal clime with skipping insouciance. Excepting the lethargic last bars of ‘Will “The Thrill”‘, Cayucas convey the summer sun with heys rather than haze.

That they also avoid the suspicious wash of Instagrammed retro is partly attributable to lyrics that surpass expectations by being both romantic and consciously silly, adding more than a splash of irony to any too cool for surf school attitude. Careless happiness is introduced on the bouncingly energetic opener ‘Cayucos’, while ‘High School Lover’, distilling the band’s essence most effectively, offers “See, ever since I saw you on the back of some guy’s bicycle I’ve been feeling kind of so-so”. Lines like these signal a lack of solemn intent, though they give way to wistful futility soon afterwards. The Beach Boys didn’t sing about being gauche in love; in this setting, the songs suggest the missteps and insecurities of the beautiful people. ‘A Summer Thing’ matches jaunty hooks with lonely sentiments (“Now you’re watching the rain fall by yourself from your bedroom window / I’ll be checking the mailbox for the postcards that you said you’d send”), adding a twist of heartache to what might have been just mucking about in the shallows.

The constancy of the style creates a suspicion about whether – at thirty-one minutes – there are quite enough ideas to support a full album. ‘Deep Sea’ and ‘Ayawa ‘Kya’ suffer from an ebbing of momentum, the fluttering of the former ultimately repetitious to distraction. Notwithstanding the production efforts of latter day Shin Richard Swift, at these points this hooky, kooky album sounds slightly undercooked. The attention wanders a little before the title track, which ends proceedings with more benign beats and breezy chants.

Where unabashed beach hedonism might grate, Cayucas’s slightly awkward optimism imbues a friendly warmth, something humanising that softens the glare and freshens the sultry air. The surfers’ idyll is no mirage; only scenic surroundings for familiar fallibility. Bigfoot is bittersweet; cheerful and charming in small doses, and – as that’s all you get – it’s time well spent.

The problem with not knowing a lot about a band other than their name and what it conjures up – plus a few minor details about what they might sound like – means you’re often living with a self-created musical myth instead of what they actually do sound like. That’s the position I found myself in before finally experiencing the music of Minus the Bear at Glasgow’s King Tut’s on Saturday night. Here’s what I knew/assumed:

1. The name: kind of a rubbish band in-joke, yet it works in a kind of endearing way. That assumption still stands true
2. There’d be a fair amount of “guitar taps” throughout, a technique that looks and sounds irritating in equal measure. I was glad to be proven wrong on that score
3. There’d be a good quota of difficult to follow time signatures and tempo changes, and few choruses. Correct, but that would never had bothered me anyway

The Seattle band can probably be put into the “veterans” bracket of the alt.rock scene given it’s been 12 years since front man and guitarist Jake Snider formed the band, and in that time released five full-length records. They’ve always passed me by, give or take a few songs, so this was an opportunity to finally get to know Minus the Bear as they toured behind their latest album Infinity Overhead.

The songs I heard that were taken from that record appeared to be the sound of a more direct Minus the Bear: driving guitar rhythms backed with subtle electronics (think a rockier Bear in Heaven…..must be a bear thing) and less skipping around the time signatures. So songs like opener ‘Steel and Blood’, ‘Diamond Lightning’ and ‘Toska’ were pleasingly instant hits (the latter especially with its addictive and colourful cyclical riffs), if a little obvious at times – although there’s nothing wrong with obvious if it’s executed extremely well.

The most enjoyable moments for me – and those that were most well-received by a receptive crowd who knew the back catalogue better than I – came when the band played tracks from older albums: ‘The Fix’, from 2005’s Menos el Oso, was a wonderfully scratchy punk-funk bomb, while another older track ‘Knights’ pounded along with math rock intensity and plenty of fun changes in tempo and ‘Spritz!!! Spritz!!!’ from debut album Highly Refined Pirates was probably the best moment of the night; an example of how well the band seem to combine those tricksy math rock tempo changes with a more direct guitar style, that track, plus show closer and all-round anthem ‘Pachuca Sunrise’ would be enough to convince anyone to seek out the band’s back catalogue.

As a first experience of Minus the Bear I have to admit that it’s not made me a complete convert to what they do; I think when they nail that combination of math and alt. it’s very good indeed, but I wonder if when I finally do listen to those records there’ll be a great number of dull moments in-between the attention-grabbers? However, this was damn good fun and if it’s made me want to investigate further, then it’s a definite case of job done.

There seems to be this perennial myth that, if you’re feeling a little low then the best music to pick you up is “happy” music, like it’s some kind of escapist antidote that has the ability to metamorphose reality into an exultant utopia where everything’s fine and dandy. But what happens when the record stops playing? Play it again? Find something else equally immaterial about how carefree the person on the other end is feeling?

Guards’ debut has an adverse effect on me; there’s something depressingly vexatious about listening to an album with such euphoric reverence when you can’t particularly relate to the joyous, beatific clamour permeating your earholes. That’s not to say that musically, the only cure for dejection is Joy Division, but the problem with Guards’ music is – not that it’s too cheerful, too blithely hopeful, too wrapped up in its own insouciant bubble – but that it’s lacking conviction. There’s a difference between evoking that feel-good exuberance you get with so many of Guards’ antecedents, and being overtly optimistic for the sake of it. Even in the moments that are supposed to lament contemplative grief it lacks tender sentience: ‘1&1’ has an underlying introspective that’s enshrouded by clichéd discourse of love gone awry.

Of course, you could argue that perhaps if I was in some halcyon nirvana soaking up the sun with this album on repeat I’d be relishing every second of it. But the (sad) truth is I’m not. And with unfamiliarity often comes an inability to relate, and In Guards We Trust sounds like a gushy, overly-ebullient depiction of a world a million miles away from where I am – and while some music has the ability to transport you to a better place – Guards don’t perpetuate this idea – instead they deliver something that often sounds extraneously effervescent.

That said, In Guards We Trust is nothing if not consistent. From the euphoric opener ‘Nightmare’ to the rapturous ‘Giving Out’ that proceeds it, all twelve tracks nurture scaling bass lines, colossal choruses and hyperactive, washed-out vocals en masse. It’s all seemingly pleasant initially, but as a collective it begins to sound redundant and tedious by the album’s close. It’s not entirely uninspiring though, there’s admirable hints of genre-tinkering: aforementioned opener ‘Nightmare’ is powered by a soul rhythm underpinning Follin’s jovial lilt, dressed up and swathed in hazy, Californian imagery, and ‘Can’t Repair’ is a continuation of Guards’ penchant for exploring elements of Motown.

‘Your Man’ offers a more placid vision of Guards’ competence for melody and nuance and it’s a welcomed juncture. These are the moments where Guards’ ability to make proficient pop songs really begins to shine  and In Guards We Trust breaks from its effusive lavishness. You’ve also got to give it to Richie Follin & co for being masters of those familiar gigantic hooks and aggregated choruses that no-one seems to be using anymore, though it plays a big part in why the album in its entirety sounds a little outmoded in 2013 – and while not remotely original – the unabashed attempt to salvage the last remains of anthemic indie-rock music is admirable in itself.