After a meal in Surry Hills, me and my crew headed down to Railway Square to hop on a bus out to the Factory Theatre. Convenient public transport is just one of the reasons why the Factory is becoming a very welcome addition to Sydney’s limited roster of venues. You’ll spot some of the others later in this review, if you read carefully.

We arrived to see a bit of a queue at the door, and one of the things the venue might want to take a look at is how to handle the influx of folk, especially at a show such as this Sunday night gig where everyone is more likely to arrive at once than your typical non-school night. But the door staff are courteous and efficient and we quickly moved into a well-laid out, gently tiered main room – before being confronted with Triosk.

Triosk have been described as an electronic/jazz fusion act, but as far as I’m concerned even bad jazz doesn’t sound this terrible. A better description might be ‘post rock’, as in possessing the musicality of a bloke hitting a post with a rock. Or hitting a post with an effects pedal that is tied to a rock. With a bass player, drummer, and a Rhodes/synths and samples guy, there’s a lot going on when Triosk are on stage. But there’s also a lot going on when you put your hand inside an unguarded piece of industrial machinery, and we have laws to prevent that from happening.

Misgivings aside, Triosk apparently have a lot of loyal fans, as was evidenced by the amount of people present at this gig from the very start, and how much applause they got between tracks (unless like me of course, they were applauding the ceasing of the music rather than what had gone before.) Admittedly they did get my foot tapping a couple of times, although again that could have just been my foot trying to work up enough independent motion to achieve an escape velocity. It’s difficult to review music you just don’t get, and because I like my music to have an element of ‘musicality’ about it, I have to admit that I don’t get Triosk. But I did manage to drown a couple of reasonably-priced beers before they finished up. All good.

And then, we got Amon Tobin. Stepping up to two Numark HDX turntables, the vaguely martial air to the opening track foreshadowed the slow, black assault that was to come. There aren’t enough synonyms for ‘loud’ in the English language to do this set justice, but it was oh-so cinematic and seething with dark energy. Tobin led us through the valley of the shadow of drum and bass, then into a little hip hop to lighten the mood before, about an hour into the set, he took his jacket off and things REALLY started to get serious. The monsters projected at the back of the venue perfectly matched the wall of sound that was this monster of a set.

Tobin clearly knows a thing or two about turntables, but this was as much about manipulating the audience as it was about manipulating the plastic. It wasn’t always particularly danceable but when it was, everyone seemed to get the same idea. Did I mention it was loud? Have I used the word ‘assault’ yet? With that said, the fact that I was spared from ringing in the ears after the show finished suggests the chaps at Factory have a good idea about how to turn it up loud without making it harsh.

As Tobin was wrapping up, Kid Koala was setting up his three-turntable extravaganza and we were treated to a short joint set from the two Montreal natives. When Amon Tobin eventually exited the stage Kid Koala, aided only by an over-sized sketch pad (on which he scribbled “Sydney!!”, followed by “Make some effin noise!!”), proceeded to show us why that if he isn’t your Mom’s favourite DJ (as his new album proclaims him to be), then you need to chat to your Mom about that pronto.

Turntablists sometimes appear to take life very seriously in an “I am the sonic equivalent of a brain surgeon and you will pay attention” sort of a way. That’s not Kid Koala, he’s more “Hey, this is pretty cool”. You don’t have to take yourself too seriously to be as seriously, seriously good as Kid Koala.

Aided as we were by three video cameras projecting a view of the decks onto the back wall, we could see how cool it was. Most importantly, it sounded cool as well. There was some rock (including some material from the upcoming album) and some samples about cucumber sandwiches, but the highlight for me was a manipulation of Moon River that would have made Johnny Mercer wish he’d met Phil Spector and made Phil Spector wish he could beat his murder rap so he could work with Kid Koala.

The set finished at the advertised time of 12.15 p.m. but Kid Koala came back for an encore (he had little choice the way we were all cheering) and played the perfect finishing track, with a chiming, anthemic guitar loop in it. That was the cue for us to get moving out into the night, from what I hope will be the first of many great nights at the Factory Theatre.