SO WHO the fuck are Mouth Music and what the hell do I care anyway? It's a wetly miserable Sunday night, my beautiful girlfriend (honest) is still in England and today's phone call went really badly, the bank is hassling me over an unpaid loan and if this cough is anything to go by then, I've definitely got cancer.

Worse, the venue is jammed solid with lots of people I don't want to see. Friends of mine, waving from their tables (this is a classy joint). Piss off you happy bastards - can't you see I'm miserable tonight? I hate myself and I wanna die (thanks Kurt). Just leave me alone.

God, it gets worse. Here's Mouth Music now, seven of them and judging form the clothes and haircuts we're in for an ethnic vibe man. Bloody marvellous. Still, they've got instruments (loads of them) so at least they're not the acapella band I expected from the name. Bet they can't play them well though. Bunch of tossers, probably middle class as well. The black girl vocalists introduces them. "Hi, we're Mouth Music from Scotland'. Brilliant opening line missus, did it take long to think up? And Scottish eh? Figures.

Ha, told you! Trancy drum beats, trippy lights, loads of dry ice - these that way inclined in the audience are already starting to take their shoes off. The opening song is called "Zbadba" or something and it's sung in Scots Gaelic. Probably because the lyrics are so awful they wouldn't get away with singing them in English. Maybe I'll go home and have a good cry . . .

Actually, no - maybe I'll stay. This isn't half bad actually. Sort of, erm, dreamy or something. Nicely ambient and I quite like the way the sound shifts so smoothly from reggae to electronic and back again without spoiling the mood. Better come up with something clever for the review. How about "Mouth Music are the lovechild of Clannad and Orbital" or something. Ah, fuck the review I think I'll go dance. Yeeeaah, this is good.

Maybe the weather will clear up tomorrow. And Elizabeth's back in three weeks which really isn't so long. And if I cut down on my smoking then I won't get cancer and I can use the money I save to pay back the bank. Or perhaps I'll just spend it . . .

Olaf Tyaransen