Liquid Room

One year after entrancing audiences with a live performance at the first Digital Convenience party, English electronica auteur Matthew Herbert returns for a headlining slot on Feb 2 at Liquid Room. Entitled Sounds Like Herbert, the party will give Herbert a chance to demonstrate his credo that "The use of sounds that exist already is not allowed."

Operating under a slew of aliases including Doctor Rockit and Radio Boy, Herbert has become one of the most sought-after UK techno producers of the late ' breathing fresh life into the intelligent end of dance music with his "found sound" approach.

The son of a BBC sound engineer, Herbert was just another bedroom knob-twister until his experiments sampling everyday objects began to attract attention. He describes what happened in an online autobiography: "It was here [university] that I first started sampling my immediate environment in an attempt to create a direct link between what the audience was seeing and what it was hearing. It gave me the balls to stand up in front of 1000 strangers and try to entertain them with a bag of crisps. It was January '95 at the arches in Glasgow that I first tried this idea out and rather surprisingly, it worked. Since then I have performed live with everyday objects (bottles, bikes, drills, radios, cameras, stones etc.) and environments (I rebuilt my kitchen on stage)..."

Through a flurry of releases on independent labels, Herbert has brought his vision of house and techno to the world at large. In 1996, both 100 Lbs appeared on Phono and Parts 1, 2 & 3 on DC. Around the House (1998) was the clearest expression of the Herbert philosophy, and also marked the beginning of his collaboration with vocalist Dani Siciliano and New Orleans jazz pianist Phil Parnell, who will be joining him at Liquid Room.

Herbert has also become much in demand as a remixer, working with Super Furry Animals and DJ Food, just to name a few who appreciate his philosophy that "remixes must be completed using only the sounds provided by the original artist."

Herbert's most recent album is Let's All Make Mistakes, his first mix album out on Tresor in Nov 2000. For his Tokyo show, Herbert - who paints Tokyo's club scene as "unusual, but cool and enthusiastic" - will be joined by Tokyo-based techno-evangelist Fumiya Tanaka in his breakbeats Karafuto DJ incarnation, with Child's View and Little Creatures performing live sets.

Sounds Like Herbert: Liquid Room, 2/2, 10pm, JY3800, JY4200. Tel: 03-3200-6831. www.liquidroom.net and www.matthewherbert.com