East India Youth / Leopard of Honour / Swimming Lessons @ Kraak, 12 Mar

Though it's been with us for four years, Kraak – located off the beaten track and identifiable only to those who know where to look – remains Manchester’s secret closet of artistic oddness. We clamber up the graffiti-sprayed stairwell to find Leeds’ Swimming Lessons – comprised of the solitary Ben – armed with a Telecaster and a raft of loops, pedals, emotions and ideas; and it’s quite marvellous. As eerie projections of 50s glamour beach themes swirl across him, he delivers a series of mysterious, heart-stirring missives filled with grace, drama and tension, always melodic and cerebrally considered.

Leopard of Honour struggle against two things in their set: technical hiccups and occasionally aiming for too broad a palette, as if they’re still trying to find their true calling. A mixture of distorted and threatening vocals, squelchy bass, hip-hop rhythms and industrial grind with robotic overtones, their set is fascinating and full of laudable ideas, but these ideas never fully coalesce into anything truly exceptional. That said, their final track – full of unashamed funk and electro-pop joy – is greeted with communal swaying and a universally positive response from those in attendance. There's undoubted potential here; they just need to prune their surfeit of ideas more precisely.

East India Youth’s set is a more refined showcase of how to deftly blend ideas into something properly realised. Londoner William Doyle has a remarkable way of peaking his sumptuous soundscapes into a see-sawing, tantric beauty: new themes and ideas are gradually and appropriately introduced, from glottal-stop bass to staggered, side-stepping beats, with the focus always carefully maintained on the overall construct. Above this, he spins surprisingly classic, elegant melodies, which juxtapose wonderfully with all the future-clutter. As the set veers from Vangelis-style sound-wash to shaking, driving bass, you find yourself forever in anticipation of the next moment of clarity and reinvention. [David Edwards]