Ellen Allien & Apparat @ Kinky Afro/Mind The Gap, Sub Club, June 30

First up was Snailman, joined by an electronic dancemat on the dancefloor (you know the ones, all the kids are playing on 'em at Megabowl) –
it took a while for the older kids to work out which button makes which
noise but once they did it was sample central, and a live experiment to boot. Snailman started the party well with a grimey/dubstep set of live beats, with electro overtones reminiscent of Modeselektor. His follow-up could not have been any more different. The lanky goblin figure of Apparat stands bent next to the petite and stylish Ellen, and together hunched over the hardware, they showed us how the material from their recent collaboration clearly sounds more powerful in a club environment. Ellen occasionally took to the microphone, but was drowned out by the louder system. Before you began to think that her good looks were clouding your judgement, the Berlin queen immediately took to the decks to play a tight DJ set, with trendy melodies floating in between crispy bass kicks. Finally Mr. Mafro finished up the proceedings, dropping Modeselektor's Kill Bill and Leftfield's Storm 3000 for a clean finish. [Andrew Cooke and Keira Sinclair]