Hurlyburly opened the doors of The Sydney Hilton’s Marble Bar for their third fortnight this evening. Presenting DJs Senor Spitch, who co-runs Newtown’s favourite night, High Jinks and Mad Racket’s Jimmi James, also playing were regular runners Sly Mangles and Amstrad, two thirds of the promoters of First Blood. The night was originally billed as “a loose array of good music played along the lines of loose disco, house, rock and tech flung by DJs hell bent on emphasising the kitsch-burlesque aspects of this historic powerhouse on the bar circuit.” And that’s a pretty fair comment.

Beginning this evening was Sly Mangles, a man not afraid to show his soul…nor his funk…and not forgetting the disco and electro. Tonight his set ended with some very smooth sounding electro disco that bounced very favourably off the gilt-edged walls of the luxurious surrounds that are the basement level bar. Stepping up to the stage next was Senor Spitch, with his ever-trusty CDJs along, the little shiny disc’s replaced the big black vinyl. The sound was a mix of minimal, electro and funk, with old and new tunes being placed alongside each other without complaint. The mix was a fast moving soundtrack to an easy chatty night, the music not so loud that you can’t sit and have a good talk to the friendly group that were there. It was a small crowd that built out a bit by around 9pm, with a few faces popping in and out of the popular hotels Sunday night do. A standout track from Spitch was by a group called the Lotterboys who combine a funk beat, just the right bass lines and silly sounding vocals to make an enjoyable track.

Amstrad played briefly before Jimmi James’ set, and with his set we were witness to yet another technical side of the presentation of music that is DJing. Sly Mangles rode in on the turntables while Spitch enjoyed the compactness of the compact disc and now there was Amstrad setting two records onto the turntables alongside his laptop to give a spin through Final Scratch. Normally a techno leaning DJ, it was a great surprise to hear the first track. Learning the guitar part to AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells alongside a cassette recording years ago never had me thinking I’d ever hear it in this context, but there we were, and there it was! Following it up with Daft Punks’ remix of Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand, this was electronic musics version of an easy listening set, nice on the ears tunes that were a great backing to the night.

Jimmi James was up next, and this being the third ever Hurlyburly, and the crowds not being a huge one so far, I was unsure if I would end up seeing dancing in this context. The Mad Racketeer didn’t disappoint, with the tracks edging close to downbeat there were a few people up and shaking it about to the polished tech tunes that were pumping out. If you’ve got a Sunday evening free I highly suggest getting along to the Marble Bar for this night, in the next fortnight Annabelle Gaspar will be playing, and the following amongst tech and deep house fans will be sure to make this a night to enjoy.