The third in an occasional series of handy bite-size reviews of shows I don’t have the will or, more pressingly these days, the time to write more about.

Autechre & Russell Haswell, Vienna Flex, 30 March 2010

Mesmerising night of electronic wildness, at a venue whose pristinely loud sound system I love almost as much as the eye-poppingly beautiful nature of many of its clientele. Russell Haswell – at least one supposes it was him, although it was impossible to tell given the baseball cap pulled down low over his face – came onstage just before midnight and made a huge and inspired racket for just ten minutes. Crushing drones collided with sick frequencies in a synapse-cleaning curtain-raiser to the main event.

Autechre were superb. Their precise, mechanistic sound could so easily have descended into a dry, sterile exercise; not a bit of it. This music was endlessly vital, bubbling and, oh yes, hot.

Jarboe, Vienna Chelsea, 12 April 2010

An all-too-brief setting of Jarboe’s powerful, otherworldly voice against a churning Metal soundscape. The Chelsea’s murky acoustics couldn’t dispel the hypnotic intensity of this, less a performance than an invocation.

Neonbeats, Vienna Replugged, 24 April 2010

Fun evening of Austrian new wave and post-punk revivalism to celebrate the release of a new, extensive compilation of this stuff on Klanggalerie. Of the four groups I saw, the only one that made a really lasting impression were Modell Doo, a synth/guitar and drums duo who played with a sharp, brittle passion.