Music review: Tectonics (Day One), City Halls, Glasgow

Has Tectonics – the Glasgow contemporary music festival that set out to challenge the status quo, shock us with the experimental and defy comfortable expectations – succumbed itself to the curse of predictability? Walking into the City Halls for the start of this year’s two-day event, I was hit by its cosiness. The issuing of the same old wristband pass (difficult as hell to remove); nomadic improvisers in the foyer; a live installation in the Recital Room (Environmental Music by Lucie Vitkova); and the ping-pong processions between alternating events in the main concert hall and the Old Fruitmarket: it was as comfortable and familiar as Christmas.