East India Youth @ Korova, Liverpool, 1 February

When East India Youth’s William Doyle leans nonchalantly against a stack of speakers at Korova, the indifference with which he endures wave after wave of support act Jupiter-C’s skull-crumbling feedback could be mistaken for apathy. It isn’t, of course. And it’s not just the multi-instrumentalist’s songs of – to steal his album title – 'total strife forever' moulded on to a Baroque-era Brian Eno that give this impression, either. It’s the passivity with which he faces tonight’s near full-capacity and massively expectant crowd. This isn’t the heady fanfare of Factory Floor’s UK tour, on which he cut his teeth. It isn’t even the Kazimier, the venue in which Doyle last wrung the neck of his bass guitar on Merseyside as the supporting act on said tour. It’s a peepshow view into the world of 2014’s most venerated miserablist – and Korova is his polluted goldfish bowl.

But despite Doyle’s gawkishness, opener Dripping Down demands stadium revelry from the onset, gravitating the bleary-eyed front row with a crackle of energy and flashes of melodic nuance. A lot of retro-modernistic software hermits have this fuck-awful habit of relieving a live performance of its potency. Doyle does no such thing, writhing around on a stamp's worth of space like a hostile Hendry Spencer in a violent confrontation with a belligerent synthesiser.

If Looking for Someone and Heaven, How Long are to be Doyle’s breakthrough mainstream moments, then Song for a Granular Piano and Hinterland are his most esoteric. This final back-to-back assault sees a crack-addled Philip Glass meet Aphex Twin in a Panorama Bar lock-in for a last-gasp round of tequilas. Both versions are loud, effortlessly cool and totally original. When the wig-outs are this good, who needs charisma? A wall of noise will do just fine. [Joshua Nevett]