The Hard Quartet @ Saint Luke's, Glasgow, 25 Jun

A muggy, overcast June night in Glasgow is the perfect weather for this supergroup – featuring Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus, guitar hero Matt Sweeney, Cairo Gang’s Emmett Kelly, and indie mainstay Jim White on drums – to get indoors and have a jam. It just so happens that we’re there, too.

The group’s list of past projects reads like a dream blunt rotation of indie superstars: there's Pavement of course, and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Cat Power, PJ Harvey, Angel Olsen, and on and on… None of that matters here though. There’s an odd satisfaction seeing the likes of Malkmus navigating a smaller stage – “we need more room to stomp on our pedals because we’re an American band” – and patchy sound (“we need to put these mics in a demilitarised zone”). This project is all about embracing the awkward bits between the songs; Sweeney, Malkmus and Kelly constantly trade guitars by simply unplugging and causing a healthy buzz. They are loose, relaxed and goofy.

Indeed, the night's openers bring a similar energy. Alicks Neilson (drummer with the aforementioned Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy) kicks off with tastefully tuneless whistling, imagery that elicits stamps of delight from Sweeney’s Cuban heel (“we traded blowjobs for beer”) and caterwauling that would make the Bonnie Prince himself proud. The room is palpably excited for local legends Dragged Up; their debut High On Ripple earned them both critical acclaim and a spot on THQ’s tour (Nielson connected the two after dubbing HOR a favourite from 2024). A volley of screeching feedback gives way to a heady fusion of garage, punk and no wave.

By the time The Hard Quartet take the stage, the room is packed. A healthy Edinburgh contingent (including members of post-hardcore quartet Shinlifter, and slackers The Chunks) adds to the local throng. The set really takes off when the quartet launch into instant anthem Rio’s Song, punters joining in for a few rounds of ‘up above the world again’. From there we depart for sludge-psych epic Earth Hater, via a sweet semi-ballad, Six Deaf Rats (transformed for the live setting by White’s jazzy breakdowns) and terminating at the massive freakout of Chrome Mess. The encore is a Silver Jews cover, a tribute to Malkmus’ friend David Berman. Almost every song is introduced with an exuberant ‘hey, check this out!’ as if these four are slinging tricks down at the skatepark.

Seeing The Hard Quartet live feels like receiving a souvenir from the golden era of the American indie underground – not-so-secretly brilliant musicians, playing with precision and joy disguised as chaos.