Live Review: Seekae, Kangaroo Skull, Thomas William

From the initial stream of churning static and feedback choirs, it was clear standing anywhere else but dead centre would rob Thomas William's sound of much of its power. Once engulfed in the middle of his twitching electronic playground, Thomas made our ears the target of his aural friendship. Whether comforting them with a rhythmic pillow fort or introducing them to sharp, metallic drones, Thomas never forgot to let melody rear its lovely head. Pastoral sonics escaped the industrial machinery while hints of blissed, blurred south London streets passed like a montage, as beats met threshed howls of hymns past.

Kangaroo Skull, though, proved an altogether more straightforward affair. As the duo fed us rudimentary, insistent, pulsing beats, they piped in licks of euphoric club echoes, teased with ebbing white noise and gradually built upon their skeletal sketches. They were hell-bent on shackling us to repetition and refused to unlock the manacles until we were moving. It may have taken 20 minutes or more of relentless pounding, but finally the audience decoded the transmission. The strobes, reminiscent of Factory Floor's intense show, reinforced the unblinking menace they pumped out. This is music that ignores resistance. So, instead, we embraced it, fuelled by familiarity, trust and a locked groove. Yes, we started to have FUN finally and Kangaroo Skull continued to nod their heads in defiance of our submission.

The main event, Seekae, are rapidly turning into Australia's premier electronicists. With a set that spanned their entire output, including their first song written together and some new works, this trio of genre-ignorant musicians twisted the audience around their respective digits. A distinct contrast to what came before – although the supports were excellent building blocks for the full-scale structures Seekae perform – melody was wound around intricate scaffold; shimmering, kaleidoscopic, transparent. Mingus continues to be a wonderful example of how to manipulate familiar fragments and meld them to a will all your own. The heavier, squealing moments – like the feedback bounce of Yodal – caused an already swirling mass of bodies to double their efforts. But there was no lack of motion throughout with everyone reacting favourably to the vocal-led new songs and the soothing, sample-strewn likes of Blood Bank. Seekae even threw in a cover of perennial club staple, You Got The Love, by The Source and Candi Staton. Even that sounded disparate, but not robbed of its hook, beat or nostalgic power. Seekae's three-night stand at The Basement was a well-plotted lesson in the diversity of electronic music – the rhythmic, primal power versus the considered, challenging aural experiment. All three examples provided cases for both – and why one should rarely be without the other.