There is a huge monument on the Greenwich peninsula in the shape of a giant white female breast. Nobody knows exactly what it is for, but it is believed to have been erected as part of some pagan celebration at a particularly auspicious date in the calendar; perhaps the big tit symbolised the free-flowing wealth that they hoped they would be sucking on in the future. Unsure of its true significance, UK Plc sold the thing off to some Americans who believed they were buying an actual female breast; they also bought a plot of land in Croydon where they expected to begin digging to excavate “her” genitalia. On arrival they soon discovered their folly, and began a major recontextualisation of this once sacred place: from mammary to mammon; from nipple to Nando’s.

They put a neat little venue in there too, the irritatingly-titled the indigo2, and blessed it with a shininess of floor, sparkliness of sound, and swishiness of lights that you don’t see too often in a London venue (it is in London, isn’t it? The south eastern quadrant of the capital always feels far away and strangely disconnected. And that is coming from someone who used to live there). The lovely folks at Eat Your Own Ears booked the place up for a week of gigs featuring some people who could put that spanking sound system through its paces - also coming soon: Junior Boys, a Kompakt night, and The RZA (but mind those tube engineering works if you plan going at the weekend).

First tonight, we had a couple of DJs. Kode 9 wasn’t as dark as I’d expected, not that that was a bad thing. He played some whip cracking beats and some rumbling dub to a thin smattering of people. By the end, when he played Burial’s “Archangel” and his own “Backwards” there were about five brave souls down the front going wuh wuh one step forwards two steps back, vaguely in time to the music. Fairmont was next, and he was a bit more four four, so the number of dancers (pretty much all male) swelled to about four squared

Yeah yeah yeah check check check! The real reason I had hauled myself out across the meridian was to see Sunburned Hand Of The Man (who recently collaborated with Kieran Hebden on the Fire Escape album) for the first time, and they didn’t disappoint. Beginning all clustered around a table like they were trying to complete a particularly fiendish jigsaw against the clock, they shattered the flow of the evening with some rumbling drones. The most bearded member picked up two dummy heads that were lying on the table, and began throwing them around, then swooshing some sort of big pole which had bits of wood falling off in a manner that would not have pleased any Health and Safety officials present. Gradually, one by one they switched to guitars, with John Moloney providing some motorik and gibberish shouting up back. It eventually settled into a tight (well, as tight as this bunch could get) Yoo Doo Right groove, with Hebden nodding on approvingly from the side of the stage. After the show they were pretty much giving away albums and CDRs, I gave them all the money I had in exchange for a handful.

I was less excited about Four Tet, as you pretty much know what you are going to get with him: a crisply delivered rendition of some of his more upbeat moments. Tonight these included a couple off the enjoyable new Ringer EP, as well as “Sun Drums and Soil”, “She Moves She” (with an interminably teased out intro) and “Spirit Fingers”. Difficult to tell how much he was actually doing up there, apart from a couple of sections where he went off-piste mid-track with some more abstract improvisation - a hangover from the Steve Reid collaborations, but an enjoyable one nonetheless, especially when he used the achingly cool Tenori-On. All in all, well worth the trek; breast may indeed be best.