It’s a certain type of person that rises above the everyday drudgery of you or I. Perseverance, dedication and a level of bravado are some of the necessary qualities, and that’s exactly what could be said about James Lavelle. Along with a large list of conquests ranging from establishing genre-defying record labels, pioneering Japanese underground fashion houses and collaborating with everyone from Massive Attack’s 3D to DJ Shadow to the Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, all as part of his revered musical project U.N.K.L.E.. Not to mention his famed residencies at some of the most reputable nights in the UK clubbing scene. Whether it was one or all of these achievements that warranted his recent show in Sydney, Lavelle hit our shores with a bag full of musical goodies, eager to illustrate just how he achieved god-like status and earned himself so many of his fans. According to local reports, Lavelle was on a minimal tip, which is vastly different to the long-running breaks and tech house sound that he’s been known for as a DJ over the past couple of years. Interesting to say the least.

Meandering around the front of the newly dubbed ‘Art Factory’ was a legion of ‘arty’ Surry Hills types, clad in stripy scarves and scabby leather jackets and admiring each other’s style, they loomed in a smoky haze not unlike evil-looking tombstones in a foggy graveyard at midnight. As I pushed my way through a myriad of balloon dresses and pork pie hats and made my way past ticket collection, I was faced with an entire room of them; sipping cheap red wine and conversing about gonzo journalism and T.S. Elliot. I did a quick double take and wondered what kind of fucking event this was, but luckily perseverance is one of my strong suits and I quickly spotted some of my kinsmen, making their way to another room where Bondi locals Telefunken were getting busy ‘warming’ up the crowd.

Just like the scene in Zoolander where the main character Derek Zoolander arrogantly stumbles on stage believing he’s won the award for ‘Model of the Year’, only to turn around to see the actual winner of the prize standing right behind him waiting for him to realize his error – as the boys from Telefunken finished up their set they had their hands hoisted high in victory in response to applause from the crowd, but the punters were actually applauding Lavelle as he walked on stage behind the duo, unzipping his record case and readying his set. Poised behind the decks, bottle of Grey Goose in hand, Lavelle patiently waited while Telefunken’s final track petered out before leading with Restless, one of the strongest tracks from the latest U.N.K.L.E. album War Stories, before moving onto a set of dark minimal tunes.

When anyone like James Lavelle builds up a succession of largely successful endeavors, it’s inevitable sometimes that they are bound to disappoint; especially when the ship is set for sail to a city like Sydney, where change is so feared and repetition is embraced, where exciting new genres are shunned and even mentioning them is frowned upon as ‘dirty’. Although it may seem that Lavelle was disappointing, he was far from it. Personally, I appreciated the determination in which he approached his set, even though the collected crowd (who seemed mostly made up of educated hip hop nerds, and unwitting U.N.K.L.E. fans who might otherwise be oblivious to the minimal scene) just didn’t seem to get the sound. But it wasn’t for lack of Lavelle trying. Many times throughout his set he tried to hype up the crowd, but this turned out to be just another unappreciated musical genius franticly waving his hands behind a wall of seemingly arhythmical sound. Although I could go on about the nuances of minimal, and the intricacies of building a set around the subtleties of the genre, it would merely be dismissed as a bunch of boring, druggy, heavily reverberated pops, clicks and chkks.

It may seem like I’m struggling to give you a good perspective of what Lavelle was all about; partly because the atmosphere at the venue was of apprehension and confusion but mostly because I can’t remember most of the details of the night, so I will liken Lavelle to that of Nikola Tesla, a scientist in the early twentieth century who pioneered work on AC current and radio, whose influence is felt today but not always recognized and due to an eccentric personality was soon overshadowed by more outspoken scientists such as Edison or Einstein – basically, crazy talented and unappreciated.

Although I wasn’t early enough to catch live act Stick Figures (I would have preferred to see an energetic live act open for Lavelle rather than a couple of DJs), I along with many others were still stoked to catch one of modern music’s non-compliers and even if I wasn’t expecting the aforementioned minimal it was still worth seeing Lavelle in person. Even if I was surrounded by balding hip hop aficionados who refused to dance because they weren’t drunk enough, yet refused to leave because they paid for a ticket. At least his CDs won’t change.