Industrial Estate:A Night At Loose Trax.

It wasn't the most auspicious start to an evening. Venue MOT (a new one to me) is an industrial unit (on the Orion estate) off the Surrey Canal Road in the forgotten lands between Rotherhithe and Peckham. There's a branch of Pirtek, a bathroom supplies company, a food packaging centre, and the Christ Restoration International church (who were having a bit of a party/bbq).

The whole thing sits in the shadow of Millwall's stadium and you enter through a car park filled with dilapidated old double decker buses and huge carnivalesque painted skulls. There's no pubs or bars anywhere near the venue and I must be honest, I was tempted to knock it on the head before I even went in.

 

It was one of the warmest, loveliest days of the year but at least I'd made the most of it (Peckham Rye Park, Brimmington Park, Bridgehouse Meadows, and Southwark Park) before I decided to spend my evening in a soundproofed industrial unit with no windows.

I'd promised Mark and Natalie I'd go along to see them perform as Leyden Jars and I was glad I did but, at one point - at the beginning, it looked like, performers and promoters aside, I'd be the only person in attendance. Sat clutching my £5 can of Kronenbourg and staring right into my friends' eyes as they perform. It wouldn't have been great for any of us.

Luckily enough, others did soon turn up and once the lights were dimmed and more dry ice per head than I think I've ever seen was deployed it was Leyden Jars up first. It's hard to describe them as they don't really have 'songs' as such (nobody at these Lost Trax events does really). Imagine icy electronic dub infused with elements of glitch and even folk.

Mark, it seems, controls the beats while Natalie takes charge of the more melodic elements. At one point she plays a clarinet (or something similar) and on occasions she sings. I couldn't make the words out but I don't think I was supposed to. Vocally, think of The Cocteau Twins.

When the beats get going it's all very enjoyable and when they slow things down that seems to work too. There were passages that reminded me of old school, Alfred Hitchcock style, film scores. I enjoyed their set. I think they did too.

Before they could even rejoin me Lara David was off. I knew I could, if I wanted, shoot off early but I decided to stick around and I'm glad I did. Lara David does stuff with CDs. What she does with them I don't know. I could barely see her. But I could certainly hear her. She was a lot louder than Leyden Jars and her music ranged from icy militaristic techno that had me thinking of Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket to horror theme stuff. Not Hitchock though. Think more video nasties from the eighties.

One mark against Lara David was that she slightly overstayed her welcome. She probably could have cut twenty minutes from her set and it would have been better for everyone.

No such problem for Vostok. Apparently they represent the 'Norwich noise' scene. A scene which it's hard to imagine being very big. Never mind. Vostok began shrouded in red light and dry ice and played like the serious young men they clearly are. An industrial noise for an industrial unit. As they played I thought of Coil, Swans, Einsturzende Neubaten, and even Salem. They didn't really sound like any of them but they had the intensity of all those bands. They also had a harmonium so some extra points there.

Rounding the night off, as Mark and Natalie plied me with more cans of Kronenbourg - grateful (it seems) that I was the only one of their pals to turn up, was The Outsert. Not a band. Just one guy. One very unassuming guy. I didn't even notice he was on to begin with and the first five minutes of his set were drowned out by people chatting.

I wandered up to the front. People were missing out. The Outsert was delivering some very understated glitchy dubstep. He made Burial sound like Queen. I liked it a lot and when, for the second half of his set, he upped the tempo I noticed a lot of old ravers, including myself, starting to tap a leg. The twitches of muscle memory from our former selves unable to resist The Outsert's call to dance - but gently.

With that, it was over. I wandered back to the Old Kent Road (which feels very long and unforgiving close to midnight on a Sunday), hopped on a 63 bus home and watched a documentary about tennis. A rather pleasant, and very different, way to end the weekend.