It's a project; it's in a warehouse

Time for a Fat Roland night out! Sequence held part two of their Warehouse Sessions last Friday, featuring Autechre, LFO and Massonix, with support from DJs Surgeon, Rob Hall and residents Mark Turner and the Computer Controlled DJs.

Fil and I arrived in the pouring rain at Boddington's Brewery, which has been converted into a haven for lightstick-waving gurners. The Warehouse Project is a great name for the venue on two counts: (1) it's in a warehouse and (2) it is a project, so it won't last forever.

Unusually for us, we got there too early. This is okay because as middle-class toffs, we would have been mortified if we had arrived too late for the watercress sandwiches and the green tree and stilton soup.

>Arms & legs

After wasting time thinking about how we were going to last 'til six in the morning, we each cut off an arm and a leg for a three-quarter pint of beer. It was cheaper to buy a meal than drink a beer.

Half way through the night, we bumped into two guys who were here for the house music night next door. We invited them into our techno ghetto, but they said something along the lines of they would rather cheese-grate their eyeballs whilst being fed their own liquidised fingers. Or they said they'd rather hear music to dance to. One or the other, not sure which.

Apparently, Maggot from the Goldie Lookin Chain was there. This is a random fact and had no bearing upon our evening.

>Rita

I'd better talk about the music. The soundsystem is notoriously quiet, but I expected as much, so I wasn't disappointed. Unlike a few months ago when I went to Alton Towers to find Rita was shut. I mean, really.

I hadn't heard Graham Massey's Massonix before, but I was more than au fait with his 808 State beat combo. It was much of the same: rich, complex, beautiful, a man clearly enjoying throwing everything into the mix and smoothing it over with analogue fuzziness.

>Lazers

LFO were suitably over-serious, with monotone visuals reacting to every metronomic bleep. But the highlight for me was Autechre. Accompanied by a great lazer show (wooo!), their usual fare of disjointed percussion and clattery clicks sounded absolutely fabulous darling. You could hear every whir and every spap. ("Spap" is the only way I can describe Autechre's sound sometimes.)

I didn't gurn, nor did I wave a light stick, but it was nice to hear some top quality electronica / IDM at a gig for a change. And this is someone who went to Take That earlier in the year, so I know me gigs, me.