Found & How To Swim @ Cabaret Voltaire

If watching eleven musicians on a tiny stage in the vaulted lair of Cabaret Voltaire weren't claustrophobic enough, the sound of Found's supporting band How to Swim thrusts itself in your face with an angry snarl. Original lyrics, great orchestration, and the fullness of sound you can only get with a horn and string section, this band makes themselves worthy of the spectacle they create. Occasionally it was this same full sound that pushed a few songs a bit past melodic and out into noise. Overall, an energetic live act, but what else can you say about a band that only needs half its members.

Based on tonight's performance, Found could prove to be Edinburgh's next major export. It's a rare experience to find a group that pulls off a studio sound in a live set, and anyone in attendance who witnessed the first of the acts present, knows just how stale prerecorded beats can feel. Blending acoustic guitar, smooth keyboard voicings, and sampler controlled noise with an excellent percussionist and solid bass player, Found occupy the growing space between electronic music and the folk rock tradition. Initially wondering how this combination of strings and PowerBooks; accordion and vocoder, would all fit together, the band defined their sound right from their first single Mullokian and carried the pleasantly surprised audience through the whole of their new album. Glitched out to ecstatic, Found moved through layers of sound delivering an act finely tuned and ready to support this month's release. [Jon Mercer]