This was a show that swung between the exhilarating and the plain silly. There is clearly a new following for throat singing, and other styles that involve strange noises being made by the voice, and this finale to the Atlantic Waves festival showed that vocal eccentricity is an international phenomenon.

The most remarkable sounds of the night came from a petite Canadian Inuit singer who was responsible for the most erotic, orgasmic noises I have ever heard in a church. Backstage, chatting with her friend Björk (who appears on her new album), Tanya Tagaq explained that her katajaq style is regarded not as music but a game, in which women compete by hurling vocal phrases at each other.

Her emotional, rhythmic re-working of Inuit culture involved frantic panting and heavy breathing mixed with grunts, growls and wails, all backed by minimalist backing from a laptop. It was extraordinary, but should have remained as a solo performance.

She had been preceded by a low-key appearance from Sainkho Namtchylak, a throat singer from Tuva, on the Mongolian border, famous for her ability to produce high and low notes at the same time, and by the Portuguese star Janita Salome. Performing with these two, Tagaq seemed to lose her spontaneity and magic.

Earlier, there had been more international vocal experiments from Japan's Dokaka, the British "human beatbox" Shlomo, and Maria Joao and Americo Rodrigues from Portugal. They were all entertaining, in short bursts, producing an array of unlikely noises ranging from vocal imitations of DJ scratching to what sounded like rhythmic farmyard effects - bleats and beats.