Last Night: Flying Lotus & Jneiro Jarel

Last night I went to Shepherds Bush Hall for a gig: the headliner was Jneiro Jarel, responsible for the Shape Of Broad Minds project and LP out on the ever-dependable Lex Records this summer. Support was psychedelic hip hop producer Flying Lotus, who's signed to Warp.

The lanky Flying Lotus - wearing a ghostbusters t-shirt teamed with a hip hop style gold chain - was jamming on his laptop and what looked like a Kaos pad. After a brief listen of the Flying Lotus EP, I was expecting trippy instrumental hip hop in a Dilla styleee. Instead Lotus layered a dense melange of electronix, beats and warm soul/jazz melodies - in a not too disimilar a fashion to techno/minimal king pin Richie Hawtin - and built towards a crunching electroid hip hop soul finale.

Flying Lotus' one man live show, with laptop and knob twiddling (ho ho ho) is a staple of dance music, but I ain't ever seen it in a hip hop environment. And it really worked - Flying Lotus seems to be the point at which hip hop soul meets messy Warp style-tronix and banging beats.

Jneiro Jarel has to be one of the sunniest happiest characters to take the stage. The Brooklyn rapper, crooner and punk rocker beamed from start to finish and it's impossible not to be magnetised when a performer emits such a positive aura.

Beginning with some messy soultronics with his guitar man riffing and noodling, Jneiro's flow has an easy fluidity that evokes Q Tip and some of the warm electronix recalled Midnight Marauder-era A Tribe Called Quest.

Jneiro's one of those cats that doesn't like to be boxed and switched to gorgeous gurgling subaqueous soul (Underwater) with Deborah Jordan (who starred on stellar nu jazz/soul LP Silhouette Brown with producers Bugz In The Attic's Kaidi Thatham and 4Hero's Dego) before a bout of rapping over free jazz. A quick explanation of Shape Of Broad Minds - this is music for the broad minded rather than the boxed - was rapidly followed by rock'n'roll soul, spiky punk rock, and conscious Philly hip hop. If eclecticism is the order of today, there can't be many like Jneiro Jarel in bringing together hip hop soul jazz punk rock electronica so naturally, especially with such an infectious smile.

Big shout to Ben Run Music for the invitation. It was good to see some dedicated headz out in force - Charles Zzonked (aka dubstep soundbwoy who within 30 seconds of arriving complained at the soundsystem), DJ No Name (Foreign Beggars) who'd just returned from an East to West Coast tour of the US with UNKLE, and Melissa House 'Smoking Permitted' Party. And no thanks to the ijut on the N2 bus home who took up one and half seats and couldn't stop tutting and screwfacing.