For some reason – bias, probably – it feels like it can be harder to track down good British underground artists than American ones. My attempts to put together lists of new British bands I like, for whatever reason, can consequently be a bit harrowing. But the likes of Forest Swords are making the process a fraction easier this year. And over the past couple of weeks or so, a couple more have been flushed out. Beggin’ Your Pardon Miss Joan are a duo of Lex and Vanessa Panayi on Blackest Rainbow, a label I think I last mentioned with regard to some of those Natural Snow Buildings albums/cassettes. There’s an element of that French duo’s misty etherealism to “Edges”, especially what sounds like a shared affection for Flying Saucer Attack and the lo-fi Bristolian psych world that they inhabited. It’s easier, though, to contextualise BYPMJ (not my favourite name, or abbreviation, really) alongside some of the players who used to be called freak/acid folk. Ben Chasny’s Six Organs Of Admittance is perhaps the most obvious influence (listening to “Edges”, I’m thinking something earlyish; “Dark Noontide”, maybe?), and also Hush Arbors. But along with some really lovely, acoustic-led drifts and drones, there are also a few songs, built around airy, sighing harmonies, that are hookier and more memorable than a lot of music which comes to the surface from this scene. “Avon” especially, and “I Am The Messenger”, which reminds me, a little vaguely, of Robbie Basho (“Song For The Queen”?). The vibe gets slightly heavier towards the end of “Edges”, dovetailing nicely into another worthwhile Lex Panayi project, Guanaco. “Sky Burials”, also on Blackest Rainbow, shares similarities with various bits of Chasny’s back catalogue, but is more of a humming, eldritch trip than the generally more beatific “Edges”. Again, it’s a strong set, intstrumental this time, with Panayi stretching out his fingerpicking technique more expansively. Looking for British comparisons, we could probably work with some of Voice Of The Seven Thunders’ Rick Tomlinson’s solo acoustic work (like the live one on Kning Disk), possibly C Joynes. Or, at a push, Dean McPhee, who’s also just come onto my radar, his “Brown Bear” having come out a while back on a label called Hood Faire, but now reissued on Blast First Petite. Weirdly, I’ve just this moment noticed that the first track on “Brown Bear” is called “Sky Burial”, which suggests a certain collective underground subconscious, or at least that both players are circling the same cosmic drain. No matter. Again, this discreet three-tracker is a genuine find, with McPhee – from Bingley, according to his Myspace – specialising in expansive solo guitar meditations that sit nicely with other stuff mentioned here. That said, McPhee is a fractionally less psychedelic, more conventionally lyrical player, and the three instrumentals on “Brown Bear” come cloaked in a load of reverb which tends to fill in the atmospheres where drones would be on the Panayi albums. I’m struggling to place exactly what this one reminds me of: the allegiances to the New American Primitive school are much, much fainter, and the folk strain is played down, though I do keep thinking of John Renbourn, imprecisely. Please have a listen to both of them - Dean McPhee here and Beggin’ Your Pardon Miss Joan and Guanaco here – and let me know what you think.

Not to stereotype us in any way, but marvellous though Club Uncut is, not much dancing has traditionally gone on there. As a one-stop shop for American songwriters of a certain stripe, we’ve done pretty well. But last night’s show by Fool’s Gold is something else entirely. I raved about the debut album by Fool’s Gold towards the end of last year, a terrific smash-and-grab raid on various African musical styles carried out by a collective of LA scenesters. “Fool’s Gold” sounded like, if the band were up to strength, they could well be a mighty party band. And so it turns out, from the moment their drummer mooches onto the Borderline stage, 15 minutes early, and starts off a rolling break for a minute or two, before he’s joined by his five bandmates. In its own time, the jam crystallises into “Nadine”, when the sax player takes up the song’s smoky, downtown Abbis riff. Like so much Fool’s Gold do, it’s in many ways a facsimile of an old sound – Luke Top’s voice even floats through the mix in a way much like Mahmoud Ahmed. But for much of the gig, Top is singing in Hebrew, and the enthusiastic mixing of traditions feels like a heroic cultural fusion rather than a series of cynical appropriations. I imagine a good few world music stalwarts will regard Fool’s Gold with suspicion, and perhaps a generation notionally turned on to African music by Vampire Weekend might be a little alarmed by what are essentially quite dorky musos stretching out grooves in a way that isn’t particularly indie-friendly. For the rest of us, though, we can marvel at this unstoppable force of a band: at Lewis Pesacov, an exuberant guitarist with a fine selection of Claptonish grimaces, a lot of sweat and hair, and a technique which reminds me very much of going to see Zimbabwean bands like The Four Brothers back in the ‘80s. There’s a drummer, a percussionist, a sax player who does the work of an entire horn section, a keyboardist/guitarist, Pesacov, Top, and a whole load of percussion instruments that get passed around the stage with something approaching abandon. At times, you get the impression that these men could play pretty much anything – and that at some point, in doubtless complex past lives, they may well have done (Is this drummer the guy who played with The Fall, or the one who was in We Are Scientists?). Tonight, though, they turn their hand to desert blues (“Ha Dvash”), rearing gallops (“Night Dancing”) and, mostly, ecstatic township jives that work the audience – and, clearly, themselves – into a frenzy. Finally, they play “The World Is All There Is”, which turns into a beery audience singalong of wordless harmonies. Fool’s Gold troop off in single file, playing their drums into the dressing room, but the singing continues for minutes more, until they return and jam with the crowd on the dancefloor. There is much hugging, a saxophone brandished aloft, a mass sit down and, eventually, another song, until the band take a final collective bow – as if they’ve just headlined the O2 – and work out how to stop playing. You don’t, it’s fair to say, get this sort of thing with Arbouretum.