It’s into this thick atmosphere that the tiny outline of Flora Yin-Wong appears behind a desk with, yes, a laptop and some boxes on it. The London born, Chinese-Malaysian polymath producer, writer, DJ and musician, all set to mesmerise with her haunting electronic ambience. It’s a startlingly effective set of dramatic tone shifts which all work beautifully together to present something quite unique. Passages of quiet ambience recall Laurel Halo; disconcerting string wails come from an instrument I’ve never seen before, manipulated through her laptop. Some parts remind me of the snatched memory snippets from the best of The Caretaker’s work; other parts employ deep techno beats, turning the set into a thumping Tresnor night, moving bodies that have stood stock still previously. There’s a somewhat formulaic quiet start, heavy middle, quiet ending progression to her set, but somehow she pulls sounds out of nowhere that continuously broadside me, shifting the pitch of the set and constantly keeping me on edge, no idea where it’s going to go next. There’s not a lot to look at, there are no visuals, just the red lights highlighting the haze and the occasional glimpse of Yin-Wong setting upon the stringed instrument that provides vital texture to her sound. But it doesn’t need visuals; the presentation of the music is enough to hypnotise. Ambient sets like this can be difficult to engross an audience, however Yin-Wong has no such trouble. A treat.
The stage is cleared and reset for Bianca Scout, someone I’ve been looking forward to seeing following her stellar turns for Space Afrika and on her own excellent debut ‘The Heart of the Anchoress’ from last year. It starts incredibly promisingly with an extended Cocteau Twins by Mazzy Star strung out slowcore dreampop track, which is stunning and fully realised. From thereon in however, things take a distinct downturn, and not wanting to criticise people’s art too much, I’ll leave it at the rest of the show being like three people turning up at a karaoke bar and taking over the mic, pissing about and being hilarious to themselves, and irritating for everyone else. An odd, thoroughly unsatisfying performance, regrettably.