It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a rather right-on new album, must be in want of an album launch party. And so it came to pass that the Future Classic folk put together a launch party for Jamie Lloyd’s Beware of the Light, featuring Jamie’s live set, and proving to all assembled that Lloyd is a man who has more musical ideas than Don King has bad hair days.

The party was held in the salubrious surrounds of the Civic Underground which was, regrettably, salubrious to all senses save for the olfactory. It is bad enough to be assailed by the strong smell of vomit when standing near the bar; it was even worse that the smell in the bathrooms suggested that something large had died unhappily. I muttered to myself, “Yea, though I walk through the lavvy of the odour of death, I shall fear no evil”, but the smell was so evil that fear could not be banished. Someone at the Civic needs to get in touch with the Sunshine Cleaners, stat.

However, let us pass over this matter to the four senses for which the Civic delivered in spades; starting, most importantly, with the auditory. The Civic has what is, for mine, one of the best sound systems in Sydney, not least because of the way that it is graduated so that it is suitably loud down the front but not so loud as to make conversation impossible as you move down the back. The first DJ to make use of the auditory goodness on offer was Dean Dixon, who played some music of the sort which was all but impossible to stick into just one genre. If I tell you that some of the music sounded like two analog synths had hooked up, taken some acid, retired to a studio at the bottom of a tropical sea, and sent the results back up in a series of bubbles, would that help? Whatever it was, it was a very well chosen opening set.

The pace started to pick up a bit with Noel Boogie, who tempted me on to the floor to do as his name suggested (and no, I was not there for a Noel) and then Future Classic head honcho Nathan Mclay. The Civic was filling by this stage and the dance floor action was warming up nicely. And then, on or about the stroke of 1AM, Lloyd was on stage.

I’d described Lloyd’s sound to a mate of mine earlier as “techy soul” – the techy aspects coming from the laptop and other assorted kit, and the soul coming from Lloyd’s voice. On previous occasions when I had seen Lloyd play live, he had been joined on stage by keyboard maestro and all-around nice guy Jimi Polar. The Beware of the Light show involves a solo Lloyd, apparently with the intention that it will be easier to take around the world (and one can understand that avoiding the need to pack Jimi Polar along with your gear would cut down on excess luggage charges). Of course, in any industry that focuses on the export market, you need to ensure that you are packaging for export will find a market. On tonight’s evidence, there is not a doubt that Lloyd’s show is export-quality – now we have to hope that the foreigners don’t love him so much that we don’t get to see more shows like this one.

The vocal tracks (and the title track, Beware of the Light is the best of these) are spread throughout the show, and Lloyd makes the changes of tempo in different tracks work to show off his musical ideas to their best advantage. The tempo changes are never choppy or awkward; they change in the way that the rhythms of the city from which they came change; now slowing down, now speeding up, but always part of the same continuum, with an easing of pace creating space, breathing and otherwise, for a later surge forward.

Lloyd uses the word “angular” to describe his music but tracks like Fire Flies put you in mind of words like “propulsive”, and “galvanic” and, for both the head and the feet, “utterly compelling”. Perhaps the greatest testament to the quality of what Lloyd has done with Beware of the Light is the extent to which music which, in album form, is a deeply rewarding headphone listen, is transformed, in a club environment, into an insistent call to action to the feet and hips. There can only be too possible criticisms of this show and they are that (a) it was over too soon and that (b) some sort of encore would have been a good idea. But as the saying goes, leave ‘em wanting more, and wanting more, we certainly were.

The noted scholar and gentleman Jimmi James was on hand to give us some more after Lloyd’s set, and picked up from where Lloyd had left off with aplomb – it was only the regrettable need to be productive and useful early the next morning that prevented me from staying around for more of his set. All in all, though, a superb night from the Future Classic folk – and an album launched into an orbit that should see it acquire both local, and international, exposure.