February 4, 1999

London South Bank Royal Festival Hall

Gone forever, it seemed, was the numbing spectacle of two men programming laptops, because up there, on the big screens, thousands of synchronised images zapped by, creating a mesmerising vision of

Hey DJ, press that button! Yeah! Now download that video clip! Alright! WhenColdcut first unveiled their live interactive multimedia extravaganza a couple of years ago, it was little short of revolutionary. Gone forever, it seemed, was the numbing spectacle of two men programming laptops, because up there, on the big screens, thousands of synchronised images zapped by, creating a mesmerising vision of almost surreal genius.

Coaxed out of their studio to headline this live Peel Sessions recording and to promote their suspect 'Let Us Replay' remix album, Matt Black and Jonathon More are still very much dance music's odd couple. Their inspired marriage of MTV-slick eye candy and their own sample-strewn musical collages is certainly a vision realised, but just how far can they take something that's so obviously limited, currently, by its technology?

Too far, actually, as the opening 'Music For No Musicians' wallows in the kind of ambient non-spaces that used to be called 'intelligent' in 1992. The screens, meanwhile, juxtapose film snippets of Reagan and Disney cartoons, Rorschach patterns and Blade Runner, absorbing our concentration until the music turns to soundtrack gloss. And perhaps that's the point. Coldcut want us to experience more than the music; to be stimulated by the splattered groove of 'Atomic Moog 2000' and its symbol-heavy nuclear-war-is- bad footage.

And to make sure we're paying attention, they transform their ancient 'People Hold On' into a 'Karmacoma'-sampling rumble. It's progress of sorts, and the future, you feel, could still be theirs. Whenever they're ready, that is.