Hello and welcome to another installment of palaeo-tech’s weekend shenanigans! For this edition you will be made privy to the events at Plexus:3. Those of you reading who spent the weekend at Earthcore and missed out would do well to stop reading and go get a box of kleenex because there will be many tears shed for an incredible party missed.

Plexus can be duly counted as an institute for the underground likes of Melt and is characterised by an emphasis upon bleeding edge techno of varying flavours. The fortunate combination of the Plexus crew DJs and VJ and such an intimate venue as the upstairs area of The Shamrock Hotel resulted in not only an immensely enjoyable evening but an educational one for the relative uninitiated.

Kicking off proceedings with gusto was Eliot Clarke with a grinding slab of minimally influenced dark and brooding set high enough in tempo to be enrapturing but not so far as to be an early evening ear rape. Playing from Ableton; as seems to be becoming par for the course nowadays Eliot managed an individual and exciting style which will be all the more exciting when he has the hands on control necessary to perform with this powerful software.

Picking up where Eliot left off was Resist, the resident visual wizard for the evening but also a capable audio performer in his own right. But here let the machine gods be cursed as the fickle beasts rained down their poison upon poor Resist’s machine and crashed it in glitch laden fashion. Maybe the Plexus crew should consider an IDM/Electronica night! A shame that the punters missed out on the possible consistency of ear candy that could have been but thankfully the laptop behaved well enough to keep pumping out fantastic visuals all night.

For DJ Cam:01 however there was not a laptop in sight as the lady of techno was a vinylphile! After naughty laptops breaking the groove it took Cam a good few tracks to revive the vibe but let it be a lesson to any DJ that Octave One’s Black Water never tires and always pricks up a few sets of ears. Not to leave the quality at that Ignacio’s Darkness also found it’s way into the mix which got tighter and built better with each track played. Cam proves that techno isn’t only for boys in thick rimmed glasses and anoraks (not that you’d find that type at Plexus of course!)

For the main event punters were blessed with the performance of Peter Echoplex, a techno maven and all round nice guy. Echoplex is billed as being one of the ‘third wave of Detroit techno artists’ and this truly shines through in his music and approach to DJing. Whilst Echoplex was advertised to be performing a live PA set those machine gods (busy devils) had cursed his hard drive which apparently blew up the same day whilst preparing for the set! Not to be discouraged though Echoplex went on to play an ingeniously mixed set of classic Detroit techno churning through Jeff Mills, Underground Resistance and LFO tracks which left everyone in the room utterly breathless. Peter Echoplex is a DJ in prime form and a true master of evolving rhythm and energy. The small crowd gathered at The Shamrock for Plexus were incredibly lucky to have enjoyed so an incredible set from Echoplex at such close quarters, something which would certainly not happen were the general dance community more aware of this artist. It doesn’t get any better than twenty people and a DJ in a little pub back room!

The party quickly came to a close after Peter’s set despite a few concerted attempts at getting him to carry on; unfortunately an early flight conspired against the plan and bed became the destination of choice. Hopefully Brisbane can see more of this DJ and more of the Plexus crew on a regular basis as a few more installments would be very well received indeed. Lets just not see it put on around Earthcore time for the next!