Wednesday 25/06/03 Random Number, DJ /rupture, Kid606 @ The Bassment Club, Leeds

The stage looks like an explosion at an Apple Macintosh factory, drowning under the weight of laptops, cavalier wiring and many boxes with knobs to twiddle. Random Number is in the middle of an accomplished set to a hometown audience, and it seems like he's preaching to the converted. He plays a pretty mix of Autechre glitch and Boards of Canada melody, and his enthusiasm is certainly infectious. But, pleasant though it is, his music is ultimately nothing we haven't heard from Warp Records many times before, and we're impatient for the main event, the fearsome two-headed monster comprising Kid606 and DJ /rupture.

DJ /rupture's decision to stick to three turntables seems strangely archaic in this ultra hi-tech line-up, but there's nothing old-fashioned about his approach to the music. On record /rupture aka ex-Harvard student Jace Clayton may come off a little cerebral, but as last year's astounding mix-CD 'Minesweeper Suite' attests, he can rock the dancefloor when he chooses. His set is a blast of diamond-hard drum'n'bass layered with ragga vocals, but what really sets him apart is the way he seamlessly melds non-Western elements such as traditional Arabic music, which become an integral to the sound and not just kitsch tacked-on exotica. Inevitably, Missy Elliot's glitchcore favourite 'Get Ur Freak On' gets a run out. It won't be the last time tonight we hear it.

Kid606 doesn't even wait for /rupture to finish before he begins terrorising us with his sustained Powerbook assault. The mild-mannered Kid, Miguel Depedro, looks like it'd scare him if you spoke to him, but his frenetic collision of rave, gabba, hip-hop and jungle is totally fearless. New single 'The Illness' is a truly old-skool experience, the sort of bomb The Prodigy or Shut Up and Dance would have rejected for being too 'ardcore. The pace never drops for a moment as he weaves in old and new culminating in his now legendary copywright-defying mash-up of Missy Elliot, and kiddy-rave cover of 'Anarchy in the UK'. Though not as varied as his show last September at Brudenell Social, the relentlessly exhilarating set is nothing short of awe-inspiring.