Live Review: Mikhael Paskalev, Little May

“I wanna be a b-b-b-bad boy,” he wailed in his husky, boyish way. There was no fooling anyone at Oxford Art last night, though – Mikhael Paskalev is surely one of the nicest boys in indie-pop around. That's his stage persona, at least, although you can imagine him breaking a few hearts in his time.

The place filled with nonchalant teenage girls and mild young boys in sweaters as Little May took the stage first, three Sydney girls with a sense of ease but also real energy about their delicate folk songs, especially in the tight acoustic co-ordination and eerie howls of Hide, and the gentle harmonies of Boardwalks.

Mikhael Paskalev, nervous and excited, bantered away throughout the set, ahead of the release of his first album, What's Life Without Losers, on Friday. “I don't think I've ever been so sweaty ten minutes into a gig,” the Norwegian-Bulgarian exclaimed after an up-tempo opening, before launching into a lull of rainy day rock – the kind you can imagine being written gazing out of a drizzly window in his hometown of Ålesund or stomping ground, Liverpool. “To travel all this way and see so many people here, it really means a lot,” he told the crowd between songs. “I know musicians are supposed to be cool… but I do want to smile.” He managed a wry smirk from beneath his moustache. Teenage girls looked up from their phones long enough to indulge their crushes.

I Spy, Paskalev's first single from 2012 – and the biggest, after it went viral with a clip of him dancing in his underwear – picked up the pace again, injecting the room with a burst of red cordial in a stomping beat, sweet harmonies and raucous yells. Jive Babe followed, and its infectious '60s joy brought us somewhere a long way from rainy northern Europe. For his last song, Dust On The Saddle, we were even further into the hot wild west, riding into sunsets. The encore was a gentle coda as he returned to the stage solo to play a heartfelt song of bromance, Hey Joseph, and it was clear Mikhael Paskalev charmed his way into plenty of hearts tonight.