Wearing a waterproof Kappa coat, Hello Kitty headphones and donning a stylish Bassett Hound bag, Manchester’s own CURRENTMOODGIRL strikes poses that seem to both patronise and bolster the apocalyptic bass tones that emerge from behind her as she owns The Shacklewell Arms stage. The experimental pop musician flits from throwing serious Bjorkian vocals to letting her dog-bag bark and bite at the legs of patrons in quick succession.

But this marked contrast can also be found in her music, as she goes from new single Frogspawn – a menacing acid-bubblegum track where impish voices chant about the lifecycle of pondlife – to Sleepless 111 – a cut from her fantastic 2021 release Side Split that finds her bend her vocals in a melancholy slow-walk ballad. 

The stage is set for HYPER GAL, a title under which a noise artist and visual artist have created a blaring punk-y sound driven for the most part by crunchy piano samples and relentlessly stubborn drum patterns. 

Their live performance sees this formula – at its pinnacle on latest release After Image – exquisitely presented, with Kurumi Kadoya thrashing the drums after setting each cataclysmic key melody in motion on a small MIDI keyboard. Koharu Ishida pierces the mulched electronic sound and thundering drums with sharp vocal intonations. 

Things feel purposely crude – the band themselves describe their “limited palette” in writing accompanying the latest release – and from this place the duo are able to produce some undeniably galvanising moments. From set opener dot dot dot where the performers bring their drawling sound to life to the crude utopian melodies blaring through The Shacklewell Arms as OVER FUSSY finds Ishida yelping with an indignant tone through the waves of no wave dissonance.

The pair only go from strength to strength as the set proceeds and the crowd understands the brute fact of their stripped-down and unpolished sound when reproduced live. Kadoya hitches her foot up onto the snare drum in one song to achieve a hollow thud and bounce the song forward with a DIY gumption. At one point, the Shacklewell back room is bathed in a red glow and the splanchnic nature of the now-confidentially cavorting sound is revealed. In the belly of the bellicose beast.

The base nature of HYPER GAL’s sound is executed as it should be in the live space. Clean of any pomp or pretension, the shrillness of the vocals and the inebriated instrumentation is left to stumble and charge unpredictably. The crowd, wary of the band’s no wave sound, work themselves into a lather as two artists contribute frantically to a frustrated, puerile neo-punk mess.