Com Truise @ The Captain's Rest, Glasgow, 12 Jun

Live Review by Bram E. Gieben | 18 Jun 2012

Whichever Gods oversee electronics and connector cables are not smiling kindly on support act Cru Servers tonight, although hints of squelchy acid bass and strange analogue noise provide a tantalising glimpse of their modus operandi. CUR$ES however are an absolute revelation: three hugely talented electronic musicians on MIDI pads, a Prophet 08 synth and a Yamaha digital drum kit, swapping instruments mid-track and creating a hugely exciting set of live electronic music. The breadth of their sound is impressive, taking in tempos from witch house, purple-wow dubstep, techno, ghost garage and chopped-and-screwed hip-hop.

Seth 'Com Truise' Haley arrives on stage with a confession: "I'm a little drunk..." Cue huge cheers from a rammed-full Captain's Rest crowd. Playing through an Akai launchpad, a set of MPD MIDI pads and the by-now-ubiquitous Prophet 08, his laptop is placed stage left, on the floor. Although computer software is used in his set, Haley likes to keep things as analogue as possible. Incendiary, heavily-glitched versions of tracks from his epic Galactic Melt LP dominate the show:

Cathode Girls is a juddering slab of electronic breakbeat and stuttering, Moroder-esque synths; an ecstatic, glitched-up, staggering Ether Drift raises the tempo; while an early and epic rendition of Brokendate (the peak moment of the set) causes shivers of ecstasy and euphoria in the crowd with its Bladerunner atmospherics and slick cyberpunk synths. A slightly poorly-judged performance of a recent remix – with the unwelcome intrusion of poptastic RnB vocals – slows the pace a little, but Com Truise ups the ante with an extended, blissed-out rendition of VHS Sex in his encore, proving that even half-drunk, he's still one of the foremost names of the moment in modern synth music.

Playing Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh on 16 Aug http://www.comtruise.bandcamp.com