- Take dance music out of its usual context and suddenly the run-of-the-mill can seem remarkable. At Ninja Tune's takeover of London's Institute Of Contemporary Arts this past Friday night, part of the ongoing Clock Strikes 13 series, it felt rude to talk during Florian Kupfer's set. While regular exhibition and cinema attendees sipped coffees outside in the bar, a crowd of people stood inside a darkened room and attentively watched the L.I.E.S. affiliate weave together ambient and weirdly re-purposed film dialogue. It was the kind of dynamic you'd expect at a gig. But this wasn't a gig, this was just a bloke playing records. And we're all in agreement that the best parties focus the attention away from the DJ, right?
Moments later, a compressed kick drum appeared to sideline my confusion. Instincts kicked in, head nodding turned into dancing and Kupfer's excellent set, which moved through sharply angled techno, old school breakbeats and Larry Heard's "The Sun Can't Compare," was all the better for the experimental freedom encouraged by the surroundings.
Actress, up next, was the night's main event. The room rapidly filled up as Darren Cunningham performed live using just a laptop and a controller. A far cry from the austere trudge of 2014's Ghettoville, his set was bright and exciting, set to an unrelenting tempo and with frequent, rapid track changes. Every sound felt like it was crafted with laser precision. Like Kupfer, Actress upended expectations in his own way: the 808 claps drilled into overdrive sounded like Larry Heard's Chicago grooves extracted, re-modelled and inserted into Cunningham's futurist vision.
DJing with two 1210s and a mixer, Workshop boss Lowtec kept things simple to round out the evening. He mixed and selected tracks in a way that felt skilful and effortless. Picking records pared back to the necessities, his set was refreshingly restrained from start to finish, and it felt like things could've continued that way indefinitely. At a time when dance music events in unusual settings are increasingly common, not many of them strike such an enjoyable balance between the unexpected and the conventional.
Photo credit: Tom D Morgan