Live Review: Lone, Africa Hitech, Sauce81, Lorna Clarkson, Lewis Cancut

The ARIA gravy train made a stop at the Cross’ newest playpen, X Studio, and they had a little help from a sterling cadre of Red Bull Music Academy alumni that kept the pretty young things happy, if a little confused.

X Studio is a wet dream for people who think the night begins and ends with the door list. Once we shuffled past the six bouncers at the door and the two women wielding their clipboards like the tablets of Moses, a short spiralling staircase led us to the cavernous main bar, furnished with yawning velvet booths and several more security staff.

Everything was new and beautiful and inert. The sound system was impressive, handling bass and detail well. It was thoroughly tested and came up peaches.

Opening shots were fired by Lewis Cancut, who played a warm Afro house set that would’ve gone great had there been anyone there. Two lone dancers held court for the first hour, and as the sun finally went down the peacocks of Darlinghurst gradually arrived to drape themselves over the furniture and eyeball each other, flashing savage smiles and awkwardly jerking to music that didn’t seem right. A free Redbull and vodka on arrival softened the edges and also gave them something to do.

Lorna Clarkson couldn’t quite take hold of the room and even with a sneaky Aphex Twin track and a nicely dropped Goldie finish, the vibe didn’t gel for her. Boundary-pushing Africa Hitech then threw down an ace footwork set that blitzed the school-night crowd, while Tokyo import sauce81 charmed us with a woozy house set constructed of layered elements played live. Young Mancunian Lone closed the night with a twitchy performance that felt weird for an early week gig.

X Studio is explicitly marketed to people who don’t listen to anyone on tonight’s roster and as such it was an amusing mix of backpack-toting club kids and glossy scenesters. That’s pretty much the dichotomy that exists in today’s club industry anyway, so it was apt.