So on the surface it seemed like a vaguely good idea no? Cello n decks n macs n probably not much rock n roll. All in some newish venue in the rapidly emerging from its own cesspit of filth metropolitan giggidge zone that is Kings Cross. Oh pity the poor fuckers because we’ve been well and truly done over. Turns out the only thing that’s changed about Kings Cross is the method of the mugging. You’re still going to come away poorer and with a sore head, but it’s been done with near tenner a time tickets and some godforsaken neo-classicist musical bullshit, instead of with a rusty blade and some barely coherent English.

The venue, the unappropriately named Kings Place, couldn’t be more antiseptically impersonal if you doused it with Dettol and stuck its arse in Wallpaper*. I guess it’s trying to be like the Guggenheim NYC crossed with an E-Z Kleen police state interior. Unfortunately it just reminds me of Damien Hurst’s really bad period, where he whiplashed between polka dot painting and trying to build his own pharmacy in a box and sell it as art. So it’s white shiney and very, very plastic.

That would all be acceptable if the noise lived up to the promise. I can see Bach cello suites (a personal favourite) being magnificently messed with and bashed around by some kick arse deep beats, then flipped back on itself with the cello somehow coming out on top. Sadly the reality is that we get some well played suite stuff, which is then timidly fluffed about with like some I guess now 10-year-old trying to get their rocks off for the first time, but not even getting to tongues. Normally you’d just shout encouragement from the sidelines, but somehow you sense the inner embarrassment of the poor chap who’s only just got into double figures and feels so intensely pressurised to get it on. Frankly it’s far better to look the other way and hope the little fellow realises the futility of his actions and goes on home to his tea.

Now I’ve seen groups messing round trying to figure out what a sampler’s for and what’s the point of it anyway. I’ve seen Einsteurzende Neubauten reduce the ICA to snivelling art whore wreckage. I’ve seen Frank Zappa play for (fuck me was it really) six hours and, you know, really felt every one of those hours weighing down on me like a cement collarbone. So, I guess I feel I can take it, whatever it is, although I draw the line at fretwank jazz bullshit for obvious reasons. So this, this little rabbit scared recital was easy to work through. I just let it wash over me and treated it with the contempt it deserved by drowsing off and gently snoring in time to the overindulgent head posing of the cellist. I have to say that if you’re going to pretend that you’re doing something majorly ambitious and profound with turntables you probably should listen to some classic pre-Gangsta rap records or maybe hang out with our 10-year-old friend, who for all his sexual ineptitude has been fucking with vinyl for at least half his natural life and has elevated that to beastly godliness. Then you can talk to me about how you’re pushing the envelope by whipping three records together over the course of 15 minutes.

Til then. Kiss my arse. Puma.