Sunday sessions are always a treat, and despite miserable weather all weekend, the sun came out on Sunday 20 November to raise spirits and set us up for one of the highlights of the KUBIK Melbourne schedule – DJ Krush.

Presented by local longstanding underground crew, Stable and Floating World Arts, we ventured down along the Yarra river to the highly talked about Melbourne Music Week (MMW) venue, KUBIK. From a distance, through the trees the installation emerged: minimal and simplistic in design, this state of the art outdoor music venue was making its Southern Hemisphere debut here in Melbourne as the pulsing nerve centre of MMW, and we were here to soak every bit of it up. Apparently, we weren’t alone in this thinking – photographers galore were pitching themselves in various locations to capture this magnificent sight aback of the cityscape, empty office buildings lit up in a sporadic formation, complimenting this innovative KUBIK design. The view alone was spectacular.

But, to the music – what we really had come to see. Rugged up and thankfully with no rain, the chilled out crowd eagerly saw the arrival of arguably one of the most well-known Japanese DJs, DJ Krush. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of his solo career, Japanese hip-hop legend DJ Krush commanded attention, despite his small size, as soon as he walked out on that stage. And unsurprisingly, he kept it for throughout his performance. Krush clearly knows what he is doing, looking so comfortable behind the decks, as if he was doing the simplest thing, yet we knew that it was not.

Now, I’m no DJ Krush expert and this gig was only the second time I had seen him perform, but what I did know was this – he was a skilled turntablist, an expert on the decks. And you can quite easily get caught up in the awe of his skills and sampling – which is exactly what I did, recognising various tracks yet not remembering their names fast enough as he quickly moved onto the next sample. Although he is recognised as “a master of atmospheric instrumental production incorporating aural elements from nature with jazz and soul samples”, I loved that he incorporated beyond that with classical, world and drum n bass seamlessly interwoven into his performance. A journey was had and DJ Krush definitely showed us that his finely-tuned sensibilities are still worth taking a look at, 20 years on.

Well-received and enjoyed, those that braved the cold and windy Melbourne night were given something special – an exceptional artist against an exceptional artistic landscape. You almost had to pinch yourself that you were actually in Melbourne, and not some forward-thinking, cool European city.

“Immerse yourself in music’ the MMW told us, and with quality acts and performers like DJ Krush on the scene, we sure did lose ourselves in the flashing lights of the Kubik bricks. All I can say is: More of this please. More.