Last night Christian (in a very last minute decision) and I went to Shibuya O-Nest for a night of most excellent music.

I have written about Miaou before and I go to most of their shows when I can. They played beautifully, as always. They are such dedicated musicians and such sweet people it's always great to watch them play.

Qua is one guy - Cornel Wilczek, who also plays in the wonderful Melbourne band, Architecture in Helsinki. He played an amazing set of hypnotic blips and bleeps and beautiful sounds, all accompanied by some of the most original and exciting visuals I've see in a long time. AWESOME. Very Melbourne. Very professional. Nice guy. That's him playing in the photo above.

Pan American is the project for Labradford member, Mark Nelson's experiments into the world of electronic music. He is signed to Kranky so you can read more about him there. I did find this quote:

Fred Mills wrote in the June/July issue of Magnet that

"Nelson has a wraithlike quality; sometimes he lurks, but you always sense his presence, a deeply haunting one that's resonant on the purest of emotional levels. This is the first unassailably great album of the century."

Don't know about the great album of the century bit but he certainly made me cry (in a good way). I told him that as we both came out of the bathrooms at the same time, and he laughed and patted my back. I think he was stoked. I would have taken a picture of his set, but it was all dark and atmospheric and photos would have been a waste of time. It was all about the sounds.

Shibuya O-Nest is an excellent venue for small events, and the best part is that there is a cool little lounge upstairs (actually the venues entrance) where the bands, crew and punters all usually end up mingling after the show.

The night was made *truly* great with the discovery of a poster in the elevator announcing that the most-played artist in my iTunes collection - Jimmy LaValle's The Album Leaf will be playing there on January 23rd. Beam me straight to the future Scotty. Let the big one come AFTER the 23rd! I will die a satisfied woman.