With a warm welcome and full of soft furnishings, there’s a nice homely feel to The Lab. Watching bands perform here is not unlike having the band playing in your living room, and it’s a vibe which makes the perfect frame for tonight’s opening act appi. As anyone who has been to Japan recently will testify, it’s a land crackling with creativity; where once Japanese bands would copy their Western counterparts, now there’s a cultural renaissance going on, and indicative of this is appi, a singer/songwriter who takes the shoegaze template and reshapes it in her own form. Backed by a drummer beating unorthodox tattoos, appi exists within a warm ball of feedback and delivers songs that seep raw emotion. There’s a whimsical nature to appi’s sound that is in perfect sync with the English psyche, ensuring that the crowd has taken appi to their collective heart. 

It’s something of an international night at The Lab and Berlin’s WIND MILE prove that music speaks in a way that mere words never could. They come armed with songs which perfectly capture that magical moment that exists somewhere betwixt wake and sleep. With guitars that shine and sparkle like stars in an inky black sky, and electronica that recalls Ray Manzarek’s The Golden Scarab, WIND MILE build elegant sonic structures, cathedrals made of glass that are fragile and delicate and shine hazy light in every direction. There’s a tension of opposites between the elephantine rhythm section which drives the songs forwards and the more restrained guitars and keys, yet they are united by feelings of melancholy and resignation. The ghost of Lou Reed lives on within their sound, and it doesn’t take long for the crowd to fall under their magical spell, making an unforgettable experience.

Parisian quartet Midscale are self-described “noisemakers”, but that term doesn’t really do justice to to the vast depth and scope of their sound. They manipulate sonics to great effect, using quieter moments to juxtapose the loud (and vice versa), each acting as a foil to highlight and enhance the other. The result is not unlike stepping into a hall of mirrors with sound being fractured and reflected in all directions, the result can be dizzying and disorientating (in the nicest possible way, of course) with the listener being pulled in several directions at once. Midscale come armed with a vocalist who is just as versatile as the music and his performance becomes a kind of primal scream therapy as he reaches into the deepest part of his soul to unleash some quite terrifying roars. With latest EP Dread, This Could Save You recently released and garnering great reviews, Midscale are primed to take on the world.

The home of bands such as M People and Oasis, Manchester is a city that is synonymous with music. But that conurbation has also birthed truly great bands too (Dub Sex, Joy Division) and The Cutter seem destined to fall in the latter category. The band aren’t adverse to showing off their roots and the gothic iciness of Cocteau Twins can be detected in their sound, as can the early electronica of New Order (and I guess their moniker is a nod to Echo And The Bunnymen), yet it is to The Cutter’s credit that they sound like none of the above and their influences are precisely that; a springboard towards something new and they’ve formulated a sound all their very own. After the very briefest intro (hey, it’s a busy world out there), The Cutter arrive with ‘The Eyes’, a track that encapsulates their modus operandi. A swirling mixture of goth, electronica and shoegaze, The Cutter roll it all up in a sublime melody to unleash songs such as ‘Useless’ that are coloured with shades of glorious monochrome. They take the sheer horror of brutalism and urban living and set it to music and the result is simply startling. There’s a strange earworm quality to the band’s songs, they come with a super sticky quality that will stay with you long after they fade into the ether and will haunt your memory like a friendly spectre. An experimental edge to the band’s sound finds guitarist Charlie Mariott pulling some strange sounds from his guitar and Lucy Green doing similar things with synths, yet there’s a constant danceable quality to their sound which ensures it remains easily accessible. At almost every gig there are a few souls for whom their attention starts to flag, but not so tonight, the hypnotic drumbeats and Ewan Kinrade vocals holding the crowd in rapt, astonished awe.

As more and more bands start to shuffle off towards the great gig in the sky, a burning and increasingly urgent question at the end of every festival season is who will be future headliners. The Cutter could be the answer.

The Cutter Set List:

1. Intro
2. The Eyes
3. Defector
4. Perspex
5. Stereotype
6. You Look At Yourself
7. Useless
8. V-100
9. Pulling Me In
10. Start
11. Nothing