Mermaid Chunky @ Mono, Glasgow, 4 Dec

“This is a song called Glasgow,” announce Mermaid Chunky, about a song definitely not called Glasgow. “This,” they add later, pulling out a recorder, “is a traditional Italian cover.” It isn’t, but that’s not the point. Over the course of an hour, the colourfully clad, beglittered and bejewelled duo of Moina Moin and Freya Tate push the bounds of genre, logic and reality with a helter-skelter pell-mell of songs pulled from their debut album slif slaf slof, all delivered with the band’s signature chaotic bend. Behind them, a swirling vortex of hedgehogs, spores and plants add a further layer of weirdness to the proceedings. Nothing about any of it is coherent except that is all completely and utterly them: squelchy, erratic rhythms, kooky layering and echo effects, and silly lyrics galore.

Pushing the bounds of genre may be accurate, but it is also potentially too serious an appraisal for what Mermaid Chunky do. Their performance comes across less as avant-garde experimentation and more as whole-heartedly childlike play: at one point Moin plays two recorders at once; at another, she pulls out a pair of joke teeth and chatters them into the microphone. The crowd begin stamping their feet in the very first notes of album opener, the breathless trad mutation céilí, only to be told off by Moin – “wait until I’m at the other side of the stage,” she says, and true to her word she's jumping and headbanging there minutes later.

The set mounts to one of their best songs, the sexy rodeo-esque chaperone, and the entire crowd is led in a euphoric dance routine reminiscent of the Macarena, if the Macarena were 200% weirder and somewhat horny. With just one hour, a handful of instruments and sundry objects, and a whole lot of gumption, Mermaid Chunky build a glorious case for live music: that it can be surprising, playful, and a complete blast.