Jonnie Common @ The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, 7 Oct

"Any firefighters in?" Jonnie Common asks before introducing a new song, one of a handful from his forthcoming album that he's trying out tonight. "I shout 'Fire!' a lot in this one" he warns. If there are any firefighters in the audience, they should be less worried about the words coming out of Common's mouth than the pyrotechnic drumming on display from both acts this evening. Sweat is presumably the only thing keeping Common’s drummer Peter Kelly from combusting before our eyes, while Bertrand Auguste Mougel from support act Raza is just as volatile behind the kit. He matches Gav Thomson’s demented synth noodling beat for beat while throwing in a few of his own for good measure, bouncing around in his seat and occasionally jumping to his feet, his athleticism making a solid case for percussion as an Olympic sport.

Wild rhythms are essential to Raza’s sound, which collide South American and African influences in the context of hyperactive sci-fi soundscapes. Their opening number – “something we’ve been working on,” says Thomson – is meditative and psychedelic, while a later track could be the theme music from an old Sega Mega Drive game layered several times over and played at double speed. Throughout, Thomson wears the mischievous smile of an evil scientist plotting his latest invention to wreak chaos on humanity. We say bring it on.

Jonnie Common’s performance tonight serves several purposes. It’s the third of four shows in support of his new single Restless, an ironically laidback and soothing tune about the lonely, anxious business of being self-employed while navigating the dark abyss of student debt. It’s also a chance for the fast-talking electro-pop songwriter to air material from his unrecorded follow-up to 2014’s Trapped in Amber, much of which, we’re told, is subject to change. The version of Restless we hear tonight – the one with the mellow vibrato guitar and world-weary trumpet melody courtesy of Gav from Raza – is different from how it’ll sound on the album, says Common. However it ends up, it’s already a treat.

Same goes for the track that Common tells us was inspired by meeting his baby nephew. “Can I overshare with you?” he asks, before explaining how he was struck by the pristine innocence he saw in a fresh-faced child – or as he puts it, “he had no glitter in him!” Other songs spring from similarly odd trains of thought. One finds him terrorised by a bat that threatens to suck his blood if he misses his bus stop, while in another he wonders whether the world around him is “God’s creation, or is it HTML?” Common is on top form, rattling off lines with quick-witted precision, and these new songs go down just as well as older favourites like Shark and Crumbs.

Another occasion for tonight’s show is to celebrate his appearance on national television, performing the soundtrack to a half-hour piece of poetry by Ross Sutherland, which is to be broadcast on BBC Two this evening. The gig wraps up with enough time for Common to set up a projector and cross his fingers that the “questionable” wifi pulls through so we can watch the programme together. We’re in luck. Missing Episode, a biographical anecdote that centres around an episode of Eastenders from 1997, makes for an unconventional encore, but it’s an ambitious and thrilling piece that gives us a window into Common's more conceptually oriented musical endeavours. There's a cheer, of course, when the man himself appears on screen, and after the credits roll he thanks us for sharing his “15 seconds of fame” with him. Anytime.