Free Love @ Leith FAB Cricket Club, Edinburgh, 26 Aug

After some slightly incongruous MCing from Josie Long, Eyes of Others brings a Tony Morris tongue-in-cheek elan to the first half of his set, with near-novelty song lyrics about being as safe as a house alongside his “second-best song about deodorant”. Falsetto to bird noises to spoken-word monologues wash over dubby backing tracks, as synth solos akin to a Patrick Cowley soundtrack echo out. The second half of the set is more assured Optimo-esque ground, mutant disco with post-punk basslines and acid bass samples to boot – shoutout to the dance moves, not dissimilar to the angular stage antics of Momus.

Free Love remain perhaps the best to have ever done it, then keep going further. Who knew their usual transcendent set could be elevated into even further cosmic reaches? The addition of Paul Thomson (original drummer from Franz Ferdinand, don’t you know) is key to this. The sweaty confines of the Cricket Club are also a perfect match to Free Love’s sonic universe – Suzi Cook splits the crowd during death meditation-turn-rave staple Bones, weaving in and out of the throng, screaming sultry French in punters’ faces and throwing flower petals into the air.

A special highlight is a newer no-wave-inflected cut, Lewis Cook stoic and faux-robotic with guitar in hand, complementing the usual analogue electronics (“we’ve returned as a guitar band,” Suzi deadpans). Hits like Open The Door, All The Same To Me and How Do You Feel send the crowd into the stratosphere, but it’s the interstitial moments between such bangers which really make a Free Love live set pop: the freeform modular synth noodling, the hypnotic kosmische arps, the triggering of fuck-knows-what on a Deluge synthesizer. The end, a good heady few minutes of sheer distorted resonance, is complemented by Thomson’s relentless percussion, resulting in an intense and cathartic finale – not that anyone in the room wants this to end.