Photo: BBC 6 Music
Julia Holter
There's something unsettling about Julia Holter's musical presence. Perhaps it's her frequent use of polyrhythms - the melody and instrumental dance around each other, each one hauntingly beautiful, but seemingly oblivious to the other. Or maybe, in a landscape in which female musicians are required to be warm and accessible, it's the slightly detached tone with which she communicates between songs.
"Here's a really old song," she deadpans. "Really old. From, like, 2010 or something." The audience laughs, though no-one's sure whether she's joking or not, and she doesn't crack a smile. Frequently, she goes through the motions of tying her hair up, piling it on top of her head and twisting it around itself, before letting it fall back down again as if she's changed her mind. Everything about tonight is slightly off-kilter, deliberately out of step with itself. And it's fascinating to watch.
John Grant
I miss just under half of John Grant's set, partly because Bloc Party arrived on-stage at the O2 Academy twenty minutes late (I only made it through two songs - both new ones, both lacklustre and ever so slightly off-key) and partly because the Colston Hall is at capacity, and there's a queue snaking round the building. When I finally get in, he's just started 'Snug Slacks', asking, in his speak-singing baritone, "Is it difficult for you to be so beautiful / Or do you find the advantages tend to outweigh the disadvantages?" Somehow, he makes this convoluted pondering sound like pure poetry. Later, he's joined by Doves' Jimi Goodwin for 'Glacier', and his beautiful, soaring vibrato is unleashed. An incredible set.
Hinds
For all their shambolic charm, Hinds' live performances are more and more fine-tuned with every performance they give, anchored by precisely judged mid-song pace changes and an infectious symbiosis. 'Garden' sounds like Cornershop's 'Brimful Of Asha' slowed down and sped up and fed through multiple distortion pedals. At one point, three of them stand side by side and strum in unison, like an earnest school band, before sticking their heads in the air in faux haughtiness and letting rip with 'Bamboo'. "I'm not always gonna run behind," they sing. They're damn right.
Gwenno
Flanked by a bassist in a boiler suit, she in a sparkling, full-length gown, Gwenno's set in Colston Hall's Lantern room transforms a small crowd into a packed room as more and more people wander in, entranced by the pied piper charm of Gwenno's airy electro-pop. "This next song is called 'Patriarchaeth'," she tells the crowd, a wry smile on her face. "Which means patriarchy. Which means pretty terrible time for women." Her music, sung entirely in Welsh, is almost invariably packed with scathing political and social statements. The meaning, in the literal sense, is lost on most of the people in attendance, and yet somehow the message gets through every time. "This could be the last song you ever hear," she says before closing with Fratolish Hiang Perpeshki'.
Ezra Furman
Burning through tracks from Gigwise's album of 2015, Perpetual Motion People, like it's going out of fashion, Furman's intense, frenetic energy - all twitches and shrugs - is captivating to watch. It stirs the crowd (which includes Bristol's famous Big Jeff) into a frenzy. On 'Ordinary Life', one of the few moments the pace relents a little, he changes the line, "I'm sick of this record already" to "I'm sick of this broadcast already." That may be so Ezra - but no-one else is.
Laura Marling
"He greets me with kisses / When good days deceive him / And sometimes... I... How does it go next?" It's understandable that Laura Marling's forgotten the words to 'My Manic And I'. Since she released that song at the age of 18, she's produced new music at such a prolific rate that something, surely, had to give. Her drummer can't remember either, so she sings an approximation of the verse: "That's the gist of it," she shrugs, before moving onto material that better showcases her intense, sprawling vocals. At just 26, Laura Marling is one of the greatest living musicians around, and we should thank our lucky stars that we're around to watch her talents unfurl. Hyperbolic? Perhaps. After watching her live, it's difficult to be anything but.
