Gig review: Colin Stetson at Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds

Colin Stetson has scant interest in resorting to the stereotypical default settings of his primary instrument, however. We’re far removed from both the virtuoso displays and molten sheets of sound of jazz saxophone and the instrument’s role as an easy listening sedative as the Canadian saxophonist unleashes his physically pummelling wares tonight.

The austere stage set-up – just one spotlight that shoots blazing light and colour just over Stetson’s head as repetitive patterns dance skittishly on a screen above the musician – matches the stark sounds.

Using loops and pre-recorded disembodied massed voices for support, Stetson – occasionally obscured by his bass saxophone, so bulkily oversized it creates the impression that the instrument might be in charge of the musician – moves beyond melody to render his chosen instrument into a primarily percussive tool via repetitive patterns and dense textures that emerge from a combination of circular breathing techniques and clicking the saxophone’s keys.

Whether straddling punishingly bristly electronics that aren’t a million miles removed from the relentless ‘blast beat’ of extreme metal, providing balm for frayed nerves with an extensive becalmed drone or turning hectic volleys of overlapping notes into an insistent, skittery melody of forthcoming new album’s title track When We Were That What Wept for the Sea, the ensuing hypnotic noise – simultaneously starkly beautiful and profoundly unsettling, evocative of a sunrise over a ruined landscape – resembles the gradually accumulating intensity and physical build-ups (and release) of electronic music reimagined for a hyperactively relentless saxophone.

During the more gloomily doom-laden fanfares, the muscular aural bombardment isn’t all that far removed from the teeth-grindingly intense marathons of Swans.

It’s a powerful, defiantly idiosyncratic approach, and ultimately quite demanding for the audience and artist alike: by the end of tonight’s relatively brief performance you’re quite content that both the listener’s ears and the musician are ready for some well-earned rest.