Live: Extensive Cacophony. The xx, Somerset House.

A drizzly Thames north bank reeks of muggy monotony, as a stream of post-daily-grind suits with boots flood the aristocratic, almost regal innards of Somerset House as an apocalyptic sky looms at large, like pending divorce papers. Sipping on gently warming Swedish cider, despite the setting being as befitting to the minimal post-dubstep of Mount Kimbie as the tube is to peripheral London, temporarily discarded briefcases drip as a swathe of disaffection is cast over a conversational hoard that gradually builds as latecomers trudge across sodden paving towards a gargantuan X lurking in the shadows. For those congregated at this rather subdued strand of the Summer Series, tonight’s got as much to do with one of Britain’s leading lights in the reconstruction of a genre wrecked by wobbling headphones and Logic presets as pastel colours appeal to Interpol. Yet witnessing Dominic Maker and Kai Campos flitter between mellowed guitar reverberations, drum pad thuds and the odd thrashing of a single cymbal, all the while bobbing behind a MacBook is almost as enthralling as their imminent long player, Crooks & Lovers. Experiencing the irksome howls of Would Know without the Hotflush Recordings tag interjecting incessantly is joyous, whilst the elasticised twangs of Mayor recall early Chemical Brothers before their obsession with repetition and visuals of cascading fluo paint strangled any initial innovation.

As the almost palpably polychromatic lights left in the wake of the rupturing of the heavens fade, dimmed lights emanate from the heart of the courtyard, silhouetting the ominous X that’s attracted a quite miscellaneous throng, a throng reflective of how the past twelve months has seen London once-quartet-now-trio the xx and their uniquely introspective eponymous LP transcend genre, preconception and era. Scuttling onstage between darting shadows, an extensively cacophonous Intro seeps from speaker stacks as bassist and vocalist Oliver Sim prowls the brink of the stage menacingly, shoulders rolling like a maritime brawl. A quite inconspicuous crowd continues to exude a decibel level of appreciation similar to that which would greet The Courteeners were they to recite Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies, as synthetic ovation rings around the quadrilateral. Yet as Jamie claws away at sample boxes and a Union Jack flutters atop Somerset House, unfazed and almost entranced the trio bluster through the lupine ambience of Crystalised like possessed urchins barking at the moon, before the melancholic isolation of Islands affirms they’re not as hitless as they may occasionally appear. Heart Skipped A Beat is arresting in its trebly breakdown, something wicked this way comes in the form of the Chris Isaacs-indebted Infinity and the dual baritone harmonies of Kyla’s Do You Mind are exuberantly euphoric, Jamie bashing away on a linear drum kit. For it’s his multi-faceted fuelling of the xx that permits Romy Madley Croft and Sim to seamlessly glide through their downtempo gears, as a myriad of family members mill about beside a bemused Swedish contingent from a certain NME-endorsed lot that’ll never have to go back to Dalston. Shelter morphs partially into ATB’s 9PM (Till I Come) and a lengthy sensual onslaught entailing strobe, relatively deafening cymbal bashing (Somerset House is still vaguely residential after all) and ticker tape garner the greatest organic acclamation, but as the band’s “last show in London for a long time”, a little like Top Of The Pops, from omnipresence to entire absence, you’ll miss them when they’re gone...