WOEBOT

Baldelli flicking through his tracks.

I was working late last night when at ten o'clock I glanced at my calendar. It hit me like a brick! I was supposed to be down at Plastic People with two imaginary friends (I'd bought three tickets in a fit of largesse) dancing to the legendary Afro-Cosmic sounds of Daniele Baldelli! I got on my bike and made haste to Plastic People, a venue I usually have a habit of appearing far too early at. I've done this twice, showing up early for Target at FWD last year and for a BASH a few weeks back; giving up and going home in a fit of impatience.

The venue, which if you haven't been there before is tiny with an excellent crisp sound-system, was half-full with a curtain drawn around the dance-floor. There must have only been 60 or so people there but everyone was dancing to the languid loping analogue sound of classic-era Afro-Cosmic. The music was exhilarating, and I was devastated to learn from my colleague Tim Lawrence (author of the landmark "Love Saves The Day" disco tome and joint-manager of the David Mancuso vehicle, the Lucky Cloud Soundsystem) that Baldelli hit the decks well over an hour before. There's nothing quite as awe-inspiring as hearing the fat organic sounds of disco being mixed together, the tension between rhythmic perfection and collapse so dramatic. It's like the difference between hard-won yogic nirvana and the supermarket of LSD-fuelled transcendence.

Quite quickly the groove became more mechanised, which was a shame. However, not before Baldelli treated us to a suite of hard-rocking guitar numbers. You could throw the average clubbing crowd with something like this, the sinewy Baldelli striking rock-star moves behind the decks like a misplaced Osterburg Jewel, but the faithful took it in their stride, grooving out of the daft nihilism of the whole thing. Baldelli does take you to some kitsch places, a huge throbbing cover-version of Tina Turner's "Better be good to me" was one excellent example. Lord knows what any of the tunes were, one or two members of the crowd seemed to herald the mnemonic flourishes of some tracks, the only exception to this being some dippy modern B52s remix (Fred's plain bark unmistakable...) I was boogying away regardless. Baldelli seems to have all his music ripped to CD, with only a few records in evidence, flicking deftly through Case Logic folders of tracks.

In time the beat became flesh once more, and we were treated to a retro come-down. I supposed the evening was marked by my regret at having missed more of the fluid pulsating sounds from earlier in the evening. But hey, I missed clubbing in the Italian lake resorts in the mid-seventies too.