Live Review: Clark - The Bowery

Whilst it's understandable that many folks timed their arrival to coincide with that of warped electronics overlord Chris Clark, it was a shame that some missed out on the kaleidoscopic narrative arc provided by the assembled local jocks.

Jo Lettenmaier set the ball rolling with her usual lunched out ecelecticism, which eased into the deep grooves, 21^st Century soul and lo-rider funk purported by Ben Taaffe. Zeke followed with a lively set that ranged from the iridescent twinkling of early Aphex Twin to the neurotic, bastard offspring of '90s g-funk coupled with large plates of mushrooms. Declan employed his fluid skills by organising some severe digital chaos punctuated by sub-bass implosions that could've been mistaken for underground caves collapsing.

Whilst his current record Iradelphic contains a glimmering array of chilled out classics, Clark was clearly on a mission to do some serious raving. Eschewing almost all of Iradelphic – despite the night being billed as its launch – he displayed his pure techno roots; unleashing a banging set, replete with highlights from harder albums such as Totems Flare and Turning Dragon, including the burbling Growls Garden and unhinged numbers like Future Daniel. Unperturbed by a total sound dropout within the first couple of minutes, Clark quickly regained his stride; smashing the meat of one track into the next with such unpredictable fervour that no one dared leave the room, even for a minute, for fear of missing something extraordinary. Hemmed in by two large banks of mysterious gizmos, he remixed on the fly with bouts of ecstatic knob-flicking and a continuous piercing gaze of studious absorption. Despite finishing on the dot, he couldn't resist a quick encore and neither could the fans. A rush of optimistic chords and beats was peaked by the triumphant vocal coda of career highlight The Pining Pt. 2, before being submerged under the final fuzz wave whiteout. Modestly acknowledging the applause and frenzied whooping, he handed over to Massiv Trav, who alas did not possess the mastodonic dimensions his handle implies. Not wishing to go gently into the night, Trav ripped up euphoric, bubble-through tech-house that periodically implored us to “ride a white horse” with some frantic acid confusion; a spot on finale to a psychotropic excursion.