Live Review: Lapalux, Shigeto, Kailo, Huggz & Seabreeze

Two world class producers took over Oxford Art Factory in a powerful double bill that left everyone in the room sweaty and satisfied.

Huggz & Seabreeze kicked off the show with bouncing hip hop beats as the young crowd trickled in, warming up the stage for one half of the electronic dream team, Lapalux. Also known as Stuart Howard, this London producer's talent for haunting soundscapes was noticed by Flying Lotus, who signed him to his label Brainfeeder in 2013, and he's been riding high this year off his latest record Lustmore. Howard kicked off his set with improvisation, filling the room with a tapestry of trap: layer upon layer of jittery beats, floating synths and enough bass to rattle every ribcage. It was rich, complex stuff, almost to the point of overstimulation, yet it was difficult to tell how much was being spontaneously triggered in the moment. Perhaps that's a mark of his skill: that he can make it feel like there's more going on than it seems.

While he's been known to perform sets entirely improvised, this time Lapalux introduced several tracks from Lustmore into the mix, including the evocative Closure — a track that starts off minimalist and seductive, highlighting emotional vocals by British singer-songwriter Szjerdene, and gradually descends into lush instrumentation.

Kailo, aka Sydney producer Edward Vercoe, has a way of making retro soul and hip hop sound new — sampling '70s vocal group The Choice Four to create the joyous in2mylife and putting choppy beats over Christina Milian on Body High. His upbeat creations paved the way for a more intense experience when Shigeto took the stage.

Michigan-grown producer Zachary 'Shigeto' Saginaw draws on jazz, hip hop, and intensely personal experiences — his early works sampled his grandmother's voice to explore her experience in a US internment camp. The set traverses these all the way up to the freshly dropped EP Intermission, his first recordings since his 2013 record No Better Time Than Now. He delicately weaves arcade sound effects, jazz piano and a hip hop beat together on City Dweller and a childlike thumb harp on Need Nobody, as well as quieter, contemplative moments like Gently.

But no matter how exciting the sounds are, it can be a drag for the audience when there's just one person on stage twisting knobs and hitting pads. More and more producers are looking to overcome this by playing instruments live, and Shigeto opted for drums, embodying the one-man band idea. It was a powerful choice, multiplying the intensity even on low-key tracks, without sacrificing delicacy: every beat across the hour-long set was so strong and so precise, it was clear Shigeto is a perfectionist, albeit one with incredible physical endurance. Before setting up the closing track, bathed in sweat and breathing heavily, he confessed to the crowd: "I've had tendonitis from this shit… and I thought I wasn't going to be able to play." The crowd screamed their appreciation as he repeated with triumphant exhaustion: "That's all I got. That's all I got."