All photos courtesy of Al Greer - click here for the full gallery

Coldcut live presented by Spectrum late in February sure was a night to remember! Pioneering UK DJs Coldcut have two decades of musical and artistic experience stemming from the years of early house music, collaborating on pop tracks with Lisa Stansfield and Yazz, remixing tracks, setting up the innovative label Ninja Tunes to working recently with Roots Manuva on a track on their latest album Sound Mirrors. Live, they were immense, filling the space of the Rescue Rooms with audio-visual tricks and delights that had the audience buzzing like bees in summer.

With a warm up set by Kids in Tracksuits, these cookie DJ’s built up tidy beats as the duo blended digital laptopping creations with live vinyl scratching and mixing. The tracksuit donned DJ performed wicked moves winding his fingers round the mixer switches and vinyl like a snake to its prey. The set of electronic rhythms and textural hip-hop had the nodding dog audience light up in anticipation of the spectrum of light that was Coldcut.

Coldcut, known as Matt Black and Jonathan More were set up on stage behind a plethora of laptops, decks, mixers and technical devices. Identifiable by the shape of Black’s hat and More’s tilt, just like the silhouette design, they were enjoying the night as much as the crowd. The visuals happening above the stage were a series of projections feeding eye candy of animations, video and text to a hungry audience. Coldcut’s set started with ambient sounds as “Whistle and a prayer” set the gentle rise of heat in the room. It felt bright and optimistic with an occasional flash of image setting suspense in the air.

Live Visuals in Action - click here for the full gallery

Mpho Skeef - click here for the full gallery

With compares in the set we were herald to Mpho Skeef in her sexy 50’s do, to perform the delightful track “Island earth”. Her soulful vocals reached inside and pulled at my heart, taking my hands, getting me shaking in rhythm. Proud of their veteran history the sounds of Yazz’s “the only way is up” was beautifully performed by the likes of Mpho Skeef and Robert Owens. In art philosophy there was a fantastic atmosphere of respect and sharing the fun and experience across the stage as Coldcut choose to work with a range of musicians, this even managed in include Roots manuva in virtual presence on the projection screens.

These guys were ace, tight and high class with an abundance of musical experience they knew how to hold the crowd. Most notorious of the night was the mix of gems, feelings and flavours of music genres with something for everyone to kick in the groove and dance. I was taken on a delightful journey into sound like the spectrum of light. Lovely, lovely jubbly!

Coldcut played the Rescue Rooms on Sunday 19 February 2006 as part of the Spectrum 5th Birthday events.