Rose Kemp, 16th jan

The bus is six minutes late. This is pretty impressive for a Bristol bus so I don't mind so much, it's just that it's really cold and windy tonight. I find a torch on the bus and although I debate stealing it, by the end of the journey the conscience has persuaded me to hand it to the driver, who I'm sure now has a spare one at home.

Anyway, first outing of the year, first look at the 'recently' refurbished Thekla Social and it seems alright, a bit more spacious although there is a poor showing of proper beer at the bar. Just don't get me started on lager!

There is a fairly young-looking hippy rock band on when I finally make it downstairs after wandering about a bit, trying various doors that I remembered leading somewhere that now do not. They are called Countryside and this is exactly what they sound like. Melodic synthesisers and sixties rock ideals permeate the music that has grandiose moments of blissful distortion and lovely close harmonies. It's poppy and rocky and mostly cheerful.

Underground Railroad are a London/Paris threepiece who play anarchic, fast shouty punk that occasionally packs a serious heavy rocking punch. They all share vocal duties and it isn't let down by the bassist's insistence on wearing a banana costume, not really. Normally I don't like this kind of noise, the guitar parts always seem as if it doesn't matter what you play, it's how you play it. But there are times when it all comes together and the whole makes a sort of sense.

Rose Kemp blows out all the cobwebs, nothing else in the world is relevant when this girl sings, even when the band - or the acoustics on the boat - drown her out. The looper goes on strike a little bit but the songs are still powerful, heavy, beautiful and the stage sports one of the biggest collection of pedals I've seen at a gig - I swear they get more each time I see them! At the end, Rose introduces Sing Our Last Goodbye as Flawless but I'm sure nobody noticed. After all the loud rock her pure pitch-perfect singing lulls the room to silence and it is all over, too soon, again.

Dorit Chrysler, 18th Jan

Outside the café, the man stands transfixed. He was just wandering home, I guess, or off to the pub. What will he say when he gets there? Could he even make out the Electro-pop madness that we are experiencing out there on the street? There was this blond woman, see and she was singing some weird Euro-electro song and waving her hands at this big steel spike. And there's was this funny noise, like flying saucers... He shrugs, and turns away.

Earlier in the evening, another solo set by Alexander Thomas (previously known as Loxodonta) lulls the gathered coffee drinkers to a blissful, respectful silence. Frantic pedal pushing helps create layers of lush slow-changing harmonies over which he plays haunting melodies. These are gentle thought pieces, synaesthetic narratives of the kind only a Holophonor could recreate. The seagulls in the last track are particularly impressive.

That is just one example of the strange power of the theremin. The traditional Science Fiction overtones are far between and only really crop up once in Dorit Chrysler's set in a piece that she wrote for a film which is menacing and weird. She tells me later that she has been banned from playing in some countries, that people think that the theremin is imbued with Dark Magick so much so that a priest in Croatia even held up a crucifix as she played the Devil's Instrument. Alexander Thomas has a story about a friend who asked him where the wires were.

Tonight however, apart from the one scarey interlude Dorit's tour of the theremin includes bossa nova, cheeky and sultry jazz, electro-pop and an impressive demonstration of singing whilst playing such a precision instrument. There are a few serious numbers, some very flowery la la la music but generally it is all very light-hearted and completely different to the previous set, being more pop songs than atmospherics.

I sit in the small café, try not to annoy people with too many flash photographs and sip my wine. This is all rather refined, I think, before the next burst of comedy from Dorit makes everybody smile. Strange it may seem to the casual passer-by, but this sort of music should, nay, needs to become a familiar household sound and not the reserve of sci-fi soundtracks.