Asobi Seksu @ ABC2, 14 Feb

Tonight gets off to a shaky start with piercing feedback interrupting Asobi Seksu’s early songs. Luckily the sound-gremlins soon retire and leave the band free to deliver a set of gorgeous shoe-gaze where tracks don’t so much start and end as pulsate, shift and transform into one another, bridged by swirling synthesisers. At first Yuki Chikudate seems to have sound issues of her own, with her vocals initially buried under the wash of guitars and staccato drum rattles. But as the volume increases, it’s clear her voice isn’t just used to prettily deliver lyrics or provide an anchor for the instrumentation to coalesce - they’re another layer of that blissful instrumentation, with sighs, squeaks and moans as emotive and harmonious as her words. And just when the band risk crossing the line from hypnotic atmospherics into hazy boredom, they leave us with a crescendo of strobes and noise. [Chris Buckle]