The first album Moonshake recorded after they split in two – Margaret Fielder and John Frenett heading off to form Laika, David Callahan and Mig Moreland ploughing forward with the original name – might be their finest hour. You can hear Callahan’s moving further away from the scratchy post-punk inspired noise etched across previous albums Eva Luna and Big Good Angel; there’s a junkyard spirit to The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow, the music alternately drunkenly woozy or taut and ready to pounce. The revolving membership includes Katharine Gifford (of Stereolab) and Polly Harvey; they’re both subsumed, respectfully, into Callahan’s vision, a kind of mordant observational on the splitting seams of city life, soundtracked by a collective that sounds like Beefheart, without the guitars, produced by the Bomb Squad.

– Jon Dale