Last Friday the Newtown RSL played host to the Clan Analogue mob, a wonderfully chaotic collective of local electronic artists who were last seen under their group moniker at their credible weekly residencies at the Bat & Ball last year. Since then they’ve got tracks together for a compilation album – Doppler Shift – and their current star players, Bleepin J Squawkins, have an album of their own, Floppydisco, just out. Two album launches mandates a big party, and so it was that we headed to Enmore Road to check out the circus.

In through the door of the upstairs room of the rissole and the familiar cavernous surrounds have been transformed, courtesy of a kickass lighting rig and delightful projections courtesy of the always-hot Tesseract. The stage area was a gearhead’s wet dream; thousands of dollars’ worth of exotic equipment covered the place, with the occasional Clan member’s head popping up from behind the rigs as the night progressed.

Indeed, there was that much gear that it spilled out onto the floor – look to the left and Tesseract’s mighty visual control setup occupied a good few square metres. The decks, so often the centrepoint of electronic nights, found themselves relegated stage right and down a bit, and were looking awfully lonely on their own, untouched, for most of the night.

And the crowds continued to pour through the doors, their diversity being duly noted. The usual Newtown freaks, students, musos and heads were complemented by fans from out of the area (including – comically – a fair few saucer-eyed westies), filling the auditorium and no doubt guaranteeing at least a breakeven on the night.

The music? All that groovy leftfield electronica we’ve come to expect from Clan artists, but perhaps with less of the chinstroking sensibility that has sometimes been associated with it in the past. Luke Collision was superb and proved that while DSICO might be a one-trick pony, the man behind the hack most definitely isn’t, General Electrick debuted with some twisted shit, plenty of others came and went but the night really belonged to the Squawkins guys. They’ve been pushing their sound since time was time, and it so happens that right now that those who say what’s what have decided that their sound is THE sound. And what a sound it is: snarly, disco-infused electro goodness, tight and meaty and melodic and camp. It deserves all the airplay it’s getting, and these guys are not zeitgeist-hogging pretenders – I’ll bet anything that the pencil thin ties they sported are authentic items.

Eventually the witching hour rolled around, and the RSL invoked their bizarre ‘no live music after midnight’ rule. Not to worry though, as the previously unloved decks-in-the-corner got cranked up and DJ Ding brought esoteric tech sounds to the remaining groovers, while random strangers were invited to have a play on the lighting rig. The madness continued for another couple of hours until enough became enough and we got hoofed out.

It was a lovely night, a silly night, a night of quality music and no attitude. The only criticism to level is at the space itself – that upstairs room is a difficult room to put on anything except for a straight-up band night. The ceilings are so high, the dancefloor is quite small and all the chairs and lounges all over the place seem to work against the general vibe. Having the decks at ground level was a very smart move, and perhaps the sound system could benefit from some extra floor-level bass. I’ve seen a few nights in there fall flat on their arses simply because of the challenges that space offers. For Circuits du Soleil to not even stumble at any point is a function of the night’s success.