Friday 29 January
The 13th Note, Glasgow

“Has everyone got that Friday feeling?” A cry that usually accompanies some upbeat guitar pop. But tonight at the launch of The Lava Experiments’ new EP the focus is instead on three bands who put a new spin on shoegaze.

Glider open with a pounding drum, droning chords and Katherine MacLeod’s sweet voice. The effect is not at all unpleasant – soothing, almost. They follow this with a song that replaces the pounding with a more understated beat and a haunting vocal which sets it apart. The song ends on some jazzy, uptempo flute before drums crescendo to fill the Note’s basement.

While Glider’s music is heavy, it never descends into muddy or maudlin. You hear Sonic Youth at their most melodic, you hear My Bloody Valentine, although it does mean that the shorter songs take you aback. A sweet cover of Low’s ‘Sunflowers’ catches the ear and ‘Star and Chain’ carries on the theme, wringing guitars through some kind of effects pedal before the world comes crashing in. There is beauty in these downtempto pieces, but the band’s strength lies in those moments when frontman Colin Hamilton strums at his guitar so hard you’d think the strings – and his fingers – might break.

Laki Mera are tonight’s unknown quantity, mixing heady electronica with gorgeous pop star vocals from singer/synth queen Laura Donnelly. Their set mixes instrumental portions like the all-night bass beats in some sleazy underground club and dark, whispered passages that hint of unspeakable things. If Saint Etienne was Satan, perhaps.

And they’re not above the odd spot of guitar too, whether warped into a five-minute piece of thrashy live electronica or played acoustically, in set closer ‘Reverberation’. Angelic vocals and understated keyboards make the contrast with what has gone before incredible – a range so breathtaking it’s like a mix CD in minor key.

Once the clutter of synths is removed, the stage looks almost empty for the three Lava Experiments. But they needn’t rely on much hardware to make some of the most beautiful and powerful noise to have ever graced the Note: guitar, bass, some samples and a drum kit battered to a membrane. Frontman Fraser Rowan doesn’t say much, but what he does almost doesn’t matter – his voice is another instrument to be bent to his will in the creation of his atmospheric soundscapes, echoing like a scream in a haunted crypt among the clatter of drums and guitars.

‘Piecing Memories Together’ is of course the reason we are here. The set pivots around its understated, haunting melody, and as the song builds itself into a powerful, desolate frenzy I swear my heart actually hurts. By the end of their allotted half hour, the audience are as emotionally battered as that snare.

Words and photos: Lisa-Marie Ferla

The Lava Experiments’ ‘Piecing Memories Together’ EP – featuring remixes by Dan le Sac, Pumajaw and Betamax Warriors – is available now.