Brentwood's premiere nitespot

Mat, Dave and I went to an album launch at the 'secret' (heavily signposted) nuclear bunker in Kelvedon Hatch. It all came about through Dave’s friend Dan, who knows the musicians, or knows people close to them, or is on some internet forum that has something to do with the band, who are called Redpoint. Huge and unremittingly drab, the place is impressive in an extremely depressing way, like being thrust back into a nightmare version of the past, or into some science fiction movie from the fifties. Every time you opened a door you expected to be attacked by a bad special effect. The gift shop featured rusting tins of ‘imitation flavour textured vegetable protein’ and souvenirs adorned with mushroom clouds. On the other hand there were teddy bears (with the correct number of limbs and eyes) and a solitary Get Well Soon card gathering dust on a shelf. Postcards depicted cardboard coffins and long empty corridors. Coasters proclaimed: ‘I’m addicted to totty!’ It was hard to separate the horror from the comic relief.

All in all, it was like a celebration of institutionalised awfulness. Imagine having to spend the rest of your days there with John Major (present in effigy form). It would be worse than my recurring nightmare of being trapped in Wilkinson’s. But you couldn’t fault it as a setting for gloomy electronic music. This was not a rave. Quite the reverse: the atmosphere was low-key, studious. Dummies in ill-fitting wigs (pretending to be post-holocaust PA’s), sat listening intently along with the assembled forum members. Whenever I lifted my hand to scratch an itch above my eye, I had the panicky feeling that they’d think I was putting my hand up to ask a question, and stop the music.

Which was ambient electronica with an alluring (to me, anyway) undertone of dread, the most impressive tracks being the ones least obviously indebted to Boards of Canada. You couldn’t exactly dance to it, but you could imagine your limbs twitching spasmodically to it as you slowly died of radiation poisoning. There were visuals too. I could only see a corner of the screen from where I was sitting, which made me feel appropriately alienated, though I think I got the gist: washed-out home movies, public information films, out-of-focus shots of telegraph poles, space. When it was over we fled into the night - Mat and Dave intent on that other institution of awfulness, Sam's.