Sharp suited and carefully coiffured, East India Youth (William Doyle) takes centre stage behind his bank of computer, drum pad, synth and controller and immediately begins THE JUDDERING, the dramatic, filter-tastic opener from his new album, CULTURE OF YOUTH (all of East India Youth's song titles are in uppercase – I’m not shouting at you). Doyle adopts what later transpired to be an oft-employed technique of pushing the composition to its aural limits of frequency and form, and before we know it we’re riding along the krautrock wave of TURN AWAY – an energised performance full of vim and vigour. No sooner had that particular wave dipped, then we were carried smoothly along on the next, LOOKING FOR SOMEONE – a spectacular feast of slowcore with yearning lyrics, taken to an extreme white noise freakout climax. Doyle knows what he’s doing – it dawns on me that we’ve been treated to about 15 minutes of seamless music, yet that music has been incredibly varied in feel, tone, texture, energy and dynamic.

 

BEAMING WHITE is a worthy Pet Shop Boys homage and shows that EIY can do pop if the urge takes him. DRIPPING DOWN, a favourite from 2013’s TOTAL STRIFE FOREVER is another song to get both sonic barrels, but I miss some of the subtleties of the album version. DON’T LOOK BACKWARDS is another fine piece of writing and a fantastic lyric, but this one also feels a bit forced, too.

 

It’s obvious that EIY’s live set is fixed to a steadily building dance-oriented template; HEARTS THAT NEVER gets the acid house treatment and the crowd are eating it up. The approach is a bit of departure from the recorded material, but Doyle’s method is impressive.

 

CAROUSEL is played as final song, which works splendidly as a palate cleanser, or rather, ear soother. Aside from that, it points towards what a talented songwriter he is as the song channels Angelo Badalamenti’s synth grace and glory (Bladder Runner, Chariots of Fire). Doyle’s voice is rich and true, and carries the melody effortlessly on the river of synths in a deeply moving conclusion to the evening.

 

William Doyle is an intriguing and exciting musician – the songwriting skills are there, but so are love of noise manipulation (he’s mates with Eno now) and a penchant for dance. It will be interesting to see what comes next and how this triangle of influence/talent will combine.

Adam Atkins