Live Review: DJ Shadow, DJ Katch

The venue change seemed like it could be an unfortunate sign of poor ticket sales in support of this night, and when DJ Katch takes the stage a near-empty room reflects these initial fears. The local veteran takes it in his stride, scratching and mixing his way through a funky feast of sounds. He has well and truly served his fair share of time in helping to push the local hip hop community through the years, and though it's a shame that there weren't more in the room to celebrate, it's great to see him cutting up alongside such a legend of the game.

Thankfully, the room fills in some by the time DJ Shadow takes the stage and after a quick greeting, he sets the controls to embark on what is to be an ethereal journey through sound and vision. The centre panel of a three-part LED screen lights up with visuals the moment the music gets spinning, and the intense depth and vibrancy of these particular screens is absolutely stunning. Shadow checks over his shoulder a couple of times to make sure the visuals are in sync, then it's all systems go and the room is transported through a portal, which opens up over three panels, to the cosmic realms of The Mountain Will Fall. The live experience of this song, and its dazzling video by Territory Studio, begins to impart a greater understanding of the sheer wonder of this mastermind's latest longplayer.

It doesn't take long for Shadow to show off his 'bad-ass motherfuckin' DJ' skills, enlivening I Gotta Rokk by mixing in the notorious Walkie Talkie. The swinging, angular futurism of Bergschrund keeps the room levitating for a while, before we are dragged down to face the confronting realities on the ground by the vocal detonations of Zack De La Rocha on March Of Death, and then become sonically soothed by Nas' soulful inflections on Systematic. From here Shadow starts to dig in deep. The tortured lament of Rabbit in Your Headlights is compounded with greater weight as Suicide Pact is mixed in and the results are utterly exquisite. He follows along this contemplative trajectory with a few more stellar mixes; Fixed Income, Midnight In A Perfect World and Six Days.

Shadow's mixing and scratching is never without grace throughout the set, but the thing that shines through the most is the sheer luminosity of his artistry. A sonic philosopher in the broadest sense, he acts as such a potent conduit for culture because he negates the illusion of autonomy, embracing a creative process that explicitly honours the phenomena of mutual arising and revolution. Ouroboros can be seen to turn through each and every revolution of his debut Endtroducing... (a record listed by Guinness Book Of Records as the first album made completely from samples). The album dissolves the facades of authorship to expose creative works as products that come into being through the recreational processes of shared cultural activity. And this set shows just how much he still mines such concepts to their very core. Fundamentally the art of sampling and turntable culture has always dissolved such boundaries and challenged ownership and The Mountain Will Fall is as apt a commentary as ever on the inevitability of revolution within a society that embraces the idea of ownership to such ill ridden excess.

When the bleak futurism of Depth Charge rolls out of the speakers it hits these latter points home with the most daunting of spectral abstractions. The variety keeps on coming as Scale It Back and Nobody Speak splash a little colour into the proceedings, before the main body of the set is brought to a close on two most divine notes, Blood On The Motorway and Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt.

Upon returning to the stage, Shadow states it's his 21st anniversary of visiting this country and expresses his gratitude to the audience in attendance. Thoughtfully, he has saved the most uplifting gems for the encore. The Sideshow, The Number Song, and Organ Donor are joyous celebrations that get the crowd dancing with a sense of optimism that carries out into the night. As this cosmic voyage through a myriad of internal-external spaces comes to a close, it brings to mind Bill Hicks' hopeful set closer, "Take all that money we spend on weapons and defences each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace."

Shadow steps away from his controls to shake hands and sign some things for those on the front rows, and one more revolution of The Mountains Will Fall comes spinning out of the speakers to hit home the point - it's happening again!