Sometimes you witness a performance so special, it feels dangerous. The simmering anticipation bubbling amongst the throng in Stereo’s subterranean hideaway feels ripe with prohibition vibes — you half-expect Eliot Ness to boot down the door and huckle everyone into a paddy wagon. By the delirious end of a set delivered by such titan-sized talent, most in the crowd would’ve gladly been locked up — for fear of spontaneous combustion.

The team sheet alone makes the Harlem Globe Trotters look like S Club 7. (Little) Barrie Cadogan was handpicked by Johnny Marr himself as his replacement in The The and is nailed to the shortlist as this era’s most electrifying guitarist. Malcolm Catto has been single-handedly tearing up the underground funk, jazz and psych scene for the best part of thirty years and is DJ Shadow’s go-to guy when the beats need to hit. For those in the know, tonight was unmissable.

Opening up with ‘Electric War’, the title track from their forthcoming LP, with its snaking, cavorting groove thudding against the crowd’s collective diaphragm, the early impression is one of head-shaking disbelief — it can’t be this good, this early, can it? (spoiler: it can). Momentum is suddenly halted. Catto, distracted by a wandering hi-hat stand, asks to pause. Once the errant hardware is duly tamed, knuckles are cracked and that lopsided smile returns. Flame on.

What comes next is the kind of synapse-melting, out-of-body experience akin only to an Ayahuasca-induced Bruce Parry fever dream. And it’s stupidly good.

‘Sick 8’ locks into a demented flux of impossible, syncopated beats and searing, white-hot guitar, and does not let up. Cadogan, standing hip to cheekbone with his stage partner, impassively glances out over the audience, ever listening, curving notes around every crack of Catto’s snare. Wave after wave of weapons-grade psych-funk relentlessly breaks against the crowd, wilting the Leerdammer-shaped insulation on the venue’s ceiling into the bargain. When the eleven-minute sonic assault finally subsides and washes away, it’s like being baptised in a lake of sweat…by Sun Ra.

Showcasing a middle section of songs from 2020’s Quatermass Seven, ‘T.R.A.B.S’ is the soundtrack Dirty Harry wishes it had; rim shots, cymbal bell and heavy jazz accents all up top, thrilling and immediate. ‘Repeater #2’ showcases a bassline so filthy, it could pick a lock and whip your bra off at the same time and not miss a note. The insanity shifts up a gear when a muso in the front row takes a selfie with Little Barrie’s pedal board. Mid song.

Cadogan’s licks and textures dovetail so beautifully with what’s required on the night. Sensitive with the melody, muscular when he needs to be. It’s this fluid precision which sets him apart from lesser mortals. Catto finds space for fills where there shouldn’t be any. He may resemble a cross between Velma Dinkley’s dad and Stewart Copeland in the flesh, but is astronomical units ahead of his peers in terms of power, technique and coolness. He can drop a stick and it still sounds meant.

The whole night is breathless. Even deep into the set, little in the way of mercy is offered. By the time ‘Count Of Four’ scythes off another slab of furious guitar feedback, the audience — a mash of blissed-out delirium and those in genuine fear for their dehydration levels — bay for an encore. ‘Steel Drum’ satiates the willing.