Caught Live: Star Slinger + Moths @ The Grand Social, Dublin (25.11.11)

So, yeah. Star Slinger. He's just some bleary-eyed rap nerd crouched behind a MacBook while jaded hipsters gaze off into the middle distance, right?

Well, no actually. The Manchester-based producer's recent Dublin gig was a rapid-fire collage of dance-inducing beats and chopped-up sounds that did a good job of condensing the last two decades of hip-hop into a little over an hour. It featured pitch-shifted R&B samples and remixes aplenty (his recent A$AP Rocky refix chief amongst them), as well as an exclusive first airing of a brand new Lil B banger. Oh, and there were stage invasions - did we mention the stage invasions? They kept happening, much to the annoyance of the lone security neck in attendance and the delight of everyone else in the room.

Before Darren Williams took to the stage, local wunderkind Moths had treated a sparse enough early-doors crowd to wave after wave of his shimmering, cerebral electro. Jack Colleran has been steadily honing his ultra-precise live game for several months now, and all the omens now point towards him blowing up in a big way beyond these shores in 2012. We got there a little too late to catch Simon Bird's opening set, so all we can really do is urge you to check out his dizzyingly prolific work, either on SoundCloud or Bandcamp (where you can download EPs galore simply by 'naming your price').

Were you jumping around the Grand Social stage beside Star Slinger at any point? If so, see if you can spot your mug in any of Mark Earley's shots below.