Flume – Heaven, London 04/07/13

They say age is just a number, but it remains impossible to ignore the influx of youth making serious waves in electronic music. Only one half of the all-conquering Disclosure can enjoy a legal, post-show beer in America, while the exciting and equally fresh-faced Bondax are seemingly hot on their chart-topping heels. Australia’s Harley Streten is another 90′s baby with talent and confidence well beyond his young years.

Streten’s project Flume, began somewhat romantically thanks to a cereal box music production CD and, following a handful of attention-grabbing demos and remixes, an eponymous debut album was released four days after his 21st birthday. It is a record that is very hard to ignore; start-to-finish glistening, crisp production, a satisfying range of dance-floor drops alongside tracks with genuine structure, providing enough variation to translate his music away from the club scene.

His popularity in this country is confirmed by back-to-back sell-out shows at central London’s Heaven, following-on from his impressive January outing at XOYO. Immediately his progression is apparent; sizable, trippy projections flicker behind busy button pressing and dial turning, while a the three dimensional, kaleidoscopic ‘infinity prism’ plays with the mind throughout.

Much of the packed-out crowd are fellow-countrymen and there is a distinguishable sense of pride being omitted towards the stage, augmented by the appearance of George Maple; her cooing vocals make sure ‘Bring Me Down’ is a real highlight, before another much-loved Aussie, Chet Faker emerges to a soundtrack of deafening screams as he launches into his brilliantly desperate falsetto opening to ‘Left Alone’.

Away from the aforementioned album, Flume’s knack for reworkings are given prominence in the lengthy set: sampling Notorious B.I.G’s ‘Juicy’ adds a smooth dimension to the otherwise fidgeting, electronic tone; his cinematic and magically romantic remix of Disclosure single ‘You & Me’ is particularly memorable. Its powerful, orchestral strings are matched with seductive, kissing visuals, before his take on ‘HyperParadise’ closes proceedings, with a crowd-surfing Faker topping-off the encore. The Hermitude track gives the swarming floor exactly what they want, crescendos coil and rise before shamelessly dropping, doffing a cap to the dubstep that echoes in much of Flume’s work.

‘Holdin’ On’, the first track that caught our attention at the back-end of last year, and forthcoming single ‘On Top’, due for release via Transgressive on 22 July, both receive rousing receptions, as Streten himself acknowledges how “Rad” the night is.

It’s hard to criticise any element of the smile-inducing performance really; Streten has honed and nurtured a sound, and indeed a live show, that is now as accessible and satisfying as it is genre-defying and mature. With youth on his side, the future remains very bright for Flume.