Live: Swimming and Swaying On Board. Caribou, Thekla.

Another spine-tingling November eve in Bristol, and in the murky depths between car park and barge the sludgy River Avon waters look perilous, ominous. Lapping up against the rusted cast iron bolts and pieces of Thekla tonight, within, wave upon wave of delirious sonic euphoria laps over dilapidated eardrums, as percussion situates itself at the beating heart of proceedings, proceedings that flush and flurry at approximately 140BPM. Up first are sibling noisenik duo Rocketnumbernine, swept aboard straight from Walthamstow and fresh from seemingly ceaseless Four Tet endorsement. Blustering whimsically into a riotous Lone Raver, Ben and Tom Page are as formidable a live force as they are irrevocably gifted at carving out boisterous synth sequences and battering cymbals respectively, and channel the relentless throb of Bristolian Fisher-Price enthusiasts Fuck Buttons were it refracted through a jazz-strewn Battles. Ebbing and flowing in and out of time signatures and varying levels of sonic brutality, their short, and devastatingly sharp set is more a stream of consciousness, consciousness that may well incur its fair share of unconsciousness, as a markedly emotive Matthew & Toby, recently remixed by the aforementioned ambient empresario Kieran Hebden churns innards and impressions alike, contorted into the shape of impending adulation.

And so to Caribou. Despite having clocked in at the top spot of our favouritest LPs of 2010, as well as clambering to the summit of a similar Rough Trade list, Dan Snaith and his troupe of blissed-out knights of psychedelia, clad almost unanimously in gleaming white still set up their own intricate labyrinth of leads, triggers, pedals and percussion. Bless. Then, cagoules and khaki set aside, bespectacled Mathematician turns contemporary maestro, as a manically aqueous rendition of Kaili gives adoring vocal chords among the surging throng severe stimulation, lumbering up to the ephemeral harmonies of its chorus. The disco shimmy of Leave House swiftly follows, as cow bells and synthetic flutes are buffeted about by hefty chunks of pummelling bassline and frenetic shakes, whilst an ecstatically kaleidoscopic Melody Day joins the dots between Brian Wilson and Eleanor Rigby, as Snaith hurtles calculatedly amidst a myriad of cables underfoot and whirring chords buzzing about in that rather wonderful cerebral matter of his behind his battered, bruised, and somewhat dusty Gibson SG. Elongated instrumental Bowls is somewhat formulaic, as synths weave in and out of drum pad skylarking, evidence of Snaith's well-documented PhD, and ends up sounding akin to six minutes inside the bells of Bristol Cathedral at midday, and a palpitating Hannibal drifts all too hallucinatorially from the realms of the razor guile with which Snaith's electronic organicity oft incises ears and urges. Lalibela, as sumptuous as cinematic heartbreak reels lingering, wandering attention spans back to stage centre, its ethereal polyphony utterly affecting, before Swim highlight Jamelia wrecks more than its fair share of aforementioned vocal chords, swirling into despondent resplendence. Tonight's show is long since sold out, and Odessa presumably had something to do with the shifting of many a ticket, as ochre flute solos permeate the baritone slump and androgynous melodiousness Snaith imbues the majority of his work with, before a raucous Sun rounds off an evening of avant-garde sea change. Best bet is probably to clamber aboard...