Live Review: Canyons, Standish/Carlyon & Andras Fox

There is something spooky about Birrarung Marr after dark when there aren't too many people around. We head toward the lights and the welcoming house beats coming from an SUV parked in the People's Market that, thanks to Red Bull, is converted into a state-of-the-art DJ booth. Perhaps because it's a school night there is just a bunch of hip-looking office workers hanging about The Residence, Melbourne Music Week's pop-up venue. The clinically white geodesic dome illuminated with coloured lights is an ideal setting for tonight's Modular party, which isn't a hi-NRG, raving 'til the break of dawn affair. The chilled music on offer tonight provides an appropriate musical backdrop to catch up with old friends.

Andras Fox (of Fox + Sui fame) in solo mode offers the tasteful bump and grind of minimal-electro disco and boogie. There is warmth and an essential funk about Fox's beats that puts Melbourne's fraternity of bearded disco freaks, all present and accounted for, in distinctly toe-tapping mood. The crowd cheers when he plays new music from his forthcoming album, Café Romantica. Fox's backroom grooves create light and easy, feelgood vibes that are instantly likeable.

Formerly of Devastations, Conrad Standish and Tom Carlyon surprised many when they rebranded themselves as Standish/Carlyon last year and released their much-lauded album, Deleted Scenes. They project a cool, elusive presence as they deliver their voluptuous, slow-motion soundscapes, dripping in reverb shift from '80s New Wave to sexy, slow R&B jams. The duo achieve an immediate intimacy with the audience but their cool, aloof posturing always keeps us at arm's length. The hooks draw us close but Standish's extremely loud bass produces strange vibrations that seemingly come with almost sinister intent, warning us to keep our distance. A seductively dreamy set that makes us want to fish out Deleted Scenes.

Engaging the senses, Canyons unveil their new 100 Million Nights show, which offers up an audio-visual experience that combines new tunes with Daniel Boyd's triple-screen projections. Boyd takes the dots found in Aboriginal paintings and projects them into the 21stcentury with animation so that they drift and evolve across the screen to create abstract, pointillist images. Canyons, operating as a four-piece band, play a selection of tracks that invariably start from ambient doodling with electronic sounds before solid beats kick in to create euphoric dance moments that then lose momentum and allow the elements of the track drift back into randomness. The frowns on a few band members' faces throughout the show suggest that technical issues make it all a bit of a struggle. Nonetheless, it sounds great and gives the lads the opportunity to produce some solid dance tracks that bring together their sumptuous mix of beats, melodies and luscious washes of sound.