Creeping Bent: How to Swim / Bricolage @ Mono

How To Swim take to Mono's stage with their number reduced to a mere regiment of eight for tonight's Creeping Bent showcase. A glorious musical oddity, they may fill the stage in much the same way as the fun-while-they-lasted Polyphonic Spree, but all similarities with the happy-clapping robe-wearers end there. How To Swim, led by charismatic frontman Ink Wilson (no, really), dazzle the audience with a brave display of musical intensity, marrying flute, violin and trumpet melodies to insistent guitars and drums. Unfortunately, the lack of their full line-up tonight means that there's no place for the band's show stopping tour de force, The Little Orgasm of Disappointment - but then that would really be spoiling us.

Bricolage take the brave step of kicking off their set with both sides of their recent Footsteps/Flowers of Deceit EP, delivering both tracks with a style and precision that is fast becoming their live trademark. After having been likened to Glasgow legends Orange Juice by no less a judge than Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos, the band appear to thrive in the wake of such a weighty comparison, delivering a tight, impassioned show that gives the lie to those doubting them for their "most likely to" label. If they continue to produce such seamless, confident performances, the label might just stick. [Christopher Boyd]