Ahhh, Techno. It’s like your favourite sex robot – cold and mechanical, but it brings hours of pleasure. In a city where the techno scene is strong, but unfortunately small and generally not easy for the average punter to immerse themselves in purely because few big clubs really give the music a chance, it’s great to see at least one major club trying to show the unenlightened just why nothing else comes close to techno. I’m speaking of course of The Chinese Laundry, which on Saturday hosted Japanese-come-Australian-come-Japanese-again legend Kazu Kimura.

As usual, the club was rammed, the sound was well tuned and the beats varied across the three rooms, but for any self-respecting techno fan, it was all about the Cave. Ladykillers were again on opening duties this week, having proved himself with an (so I’m told) excellent warm-up for Anthony Pappa a few weeks ago. Zach (as him mum calls him) again demonstrated why he’s a name to watch out for, laying down a thoroughly appropriate blend of jackin’, quirky minimal tech mixed with a few darker thumpers, including Extrawelt’s Soopertrack.

Kazu Kimura then took over the controls and proceeded to immediately get busy with some crunchy, tough, twisted tech house which soon gave way to thumping dark loops including a blissful (at least for this reviewer) fifteen minutes that featured Adam Beyer & Jesper Dahlback’s As If Dubs, MPX309 by Joris Voorn and Fuse’s classic The Loop. Dark, grimey beats soon gave way to clean, percussive and funky techno including a great layered mix between Spastik by Plastikman and Audion’s Mouth To Mouth. The percussive grooves persisted for a good half hour, the intensity building as Kazu slowly brought the BPMs up. Before anyone knew it, it was back to the old days of Sims, Mills and the other loopy legends, and boy it felt good.

Demonstrating his breadth of style, and phenomenal ability to read a crowd, Kimura would intermittently bring the set back down into deep, head-swimming minimal techno territory, before slamming in a huge bassline driven monster such as Deadmau’s excellent remix of Community Funk by Burufunk & Carbon Community, or Bad Clock 04 from Sebastién Légér. The final portion of his set receded back in to clicky, shuffly sounds, however it was definitely a nice breather from the predominantly driving filth he’d punished the crowd with for nearly two hours.

Technically, Kimura was totally on song. Constantly layering at least two tracks a time, he would switch it up from long, drawn out mixes to quick cuts and fades, and would also drop small loops from tracks for a short period and then let them fade in to the air, never to be heard again. From a chinstroker’s perspective, it was definitely a highlight watching him as he worked his magic.

Semi-permanent resident Rowan Blades was on close duties after Kazu, and was happy to show everyone yet again why he deserved the last two month’s worth of gigs at The Laundry. Despite the music taking somewhat of a stylistic jump from generally tough techno to bouncy, uplifting progressive house, Blades kept the energy and intensity levels consistent by pulling out plenty of the bigger and ballsier tunes in his collection, including Three Drives On A Vinyl’s classic Greece 2000, which certainly didn’t go unnoticed by the older members of the crowd. But then just as soon as it started it was over. But as the crowd poured out of the club at closing time, all I could really think to myself was: “God I love techno”. More please, Laundry.