Fat Out Fest @ Islington Mill, Salford, 23-25 May

What is it with Bank Holiday festivals and Islington Mill exactly? Piecing together another set of late, sleep-deprived nights, Fat Out’s latest festival – their third – is a claustrophobic, collaborative effort, cramming an international array of artists into the Mill’s dark rooms to create a weekend that’s not always comfortable but is always captivating. 

With only the Club Space active on Friday night, Chicaloyoh makes for an understated start, Alice Dourlen putting together eerie soundscapes that vary from demented fairground organ to Arabian desert trekking. Despite the odd waft of local chippy and camomile, there is a French motif to this first evening as minimalBougé follow next and steal the day. Few people can understand any of their poetry, but their flitting steel pans and double bass are infused with a jazzy energy that’s impossible to deny; brilliant, and very distinctive. The same can’t be said for Nisennenmondai, the Japanese trio whose no-wave ticks along with military efficiency but leaves us with the exhausted feeling of having spent the last half hour stood in a wind tunnel.

We arrive for the end of the white gimp-suited Barberos and their destructive double drum attack on Saturday: an auspicious start. After having another play with Don McLean’s Contact Hz installation and watching the misleadingly named Naked (On Drugs)’s lithe lounge noodlings, we settle down on the comfy cushions on the fifth floor for some VideoJam collaborations. The Young British Artists give Amanda Belantara’s snowy Sonotoki the post-rock treatment, calling to mind Mogwai's score for spooky French TV gem Les Revenants, and we catch Charles Hayward, who manages to be a more hectic spectacle than the colourful film strip he’s scoring. Die Hexen’s ethereal Celtic electronica is impressive too. Back downstairs, Terminal Cheesecake give us a healthy dose of shredding picks-to-the-air psychedelia before the standouts of the day, Melt-Banana. Yasuko Onuki controls the crowd with her futuristic light glove, yelping her way through infectious grind-pop songs that last thirty seconds tops, before ending with a delirious cover of What a Wonderful World. Wow.

Sunday calms down with the delicate Finnish folkie Lau Nau and a long-delayed visit to the Mill’s yoga room where Danny Saul and Sam Weaver are making ambient sounds with disconnected dial tones. Nadja’s black-clad droners try their best at one-upmanship with a bow and drum loop that crashes harder as it goes on. Once we’ve grabbed some of Kim Irwin’s lovely vegetarian grub in the courtyard we’re back for Farewell Poetry, the neo-classical multimedia collective whose post-rock swoons and burns with electric violin and haunting spoken word. Cut Hands’ thumping Central African rhythms fill the dance floor to close the festival, but the true climax came upstairs earlier on where all the bands improvise a 360° performance. Sometimes you can’t limit unity to a schedule.