Friday 20/03/09 Day One, Brussels Electronic Music Festival @ Palais des Beaux-Art

This is the first Brussels Electronic Music Festival, but the Beaux-Arts building housing it is no stranger to electronic music. Evidence of this can be found on the walls, with photo's of Laurie Anderson performing here in the eighties. That decade is clearly a big influence on Principles of Geometry. Two new-romantic keyboard players and the drummer setting a poodle-rock pace. It gets a bit more modern when the keys are distorted for a song sounding like Soulwax's 'E-Talking' Nite version and Justice's- 'Waters of Nazareth'. Principles of Geometry skillfully walk the tightrope between pompous and fun.

Chateau Flight have a chemistry, two mens arms intersecting across one mixer, not missing a beat, all in time. It's harder than expected, Dave Clarke's mixes of Faithless' 'We Come One' and Midfield General's 'Coatnoise' blended. The monstrous breakdowns are edited out of those songs, Chateau Flight artfully keeping the crowd on their toes.

The Rotunda room is now open and Pole is holding court on the balcony. Below, the basslines reverberate pleasingly around the sharp clicks. Like Basic Channel and more recently Martyn, this simultaneously loose and clincal sound is a winning combination. Doesn't even feel like a combination, just natural. The ambience is suitably dub-techno too, a waft of joint haze here, a bald head there. An impressive start to proceedings.