Peter Broderick @ St Michael's, Manchester, 22 Oct

Peter Broderick is deceptively young for such an old hand. When all the relics of the 29-year-old’s career are tallied—folksy songwriting, instrumental works, music for stage and for screen, collaborative dub records—the full-length releases number well over 20. The surplus of this restless invention can seem diverse, all misshapen pieces from different puzzles, but it’s never too hard to locate Broderick in any of it. He possesses a particular musical language: candid, endearing, but never saccharine. His songs never quite collapse into syrupy whisper, instrumental works never too mawkishly heart-on-sleeve, either.

Tonight at the newly refurbished St Michael’s in Ancoats this is—more or less—what is on offer. Broderick is in town off the back of recent release Partners, a solo piano record borne of the looming influence of composer John Cage; as a result these shadowy compositions form the backbone of the setlist. But, true to form, Broderick also meanders: the likes of Human Eyeballs on Toast (about the sorry state of poultry farming, not cannibalism, he reassures) and Hello to Nils both receive airings.

The autumnal hues and intimacy of the evening are held aloft by the modest size of the venue, if not its aura. Whitewashed walls and a desperate lack of gig-friendly lighting (fluorescent house lights have to be left on for the duration, for whatever reason) put any sense of the spiritual at arm’s length, and the ambience of the place is one more befitting of dentistry than artistry: it is, as Broderick quips, "kind of like a school talent show." But luminous qualms are quickly dispelled by sound; by the end of the evening a shimmering rendition of Below It, from 2007’s Home, feels like slipping into an old pair of shoes.