The interior of Shimo-Kitazawa Mosaic looks more like an art gallery than a live venue, which suits the monochrome aesthetic of tonight's organisers, Elevation, down to the ground. Fortunately, the black and white decor and strict no-smoking policy doesn't result in a sterile atmosphere, thanks largely to the fires set off by opening act Drive To The Forest In A Japanese Car's electric, tightly wound krautpunk. The synthesiser works all manner of art-school angles on the music but can't disguise the pure pop at the heart of the songs, which is reflected in both the exuberence of the delivery and the tentatively tapping feet in the slowly gathering audience.

Passion hail from Osaka and win an army of new fans tonight with their inspired mix of insanely repetitive basslines beneath choppy, overlapping drums and guitars. Happily, they also understand the meaning of the word "performance" and don't let the intelligence and artiness of what they do crawl up their own arses. Result: pop.

Uri Gagarn are also pop, but with a more emotional slant and a more understated charm. Nevertheless, the music is still challenging; it carefully avoids prosiness and never slips into emo cliche, with every member of the band clearly aware that the real strength of any rock and roll music must come from the rhythm section.

The most famous of the bands tonight is Gaji, and they put in a workmanlike performance that's rather too focussed on the rake-like vocalist and lacking in any interesting dynamics beneath the surface. As a result they come out more like The Cranberries than The Slits and their music seems flat against the vibrant punk energy of tonight's other bands.

Restoring some of that energy now, there's a blistering performance by The Warm. The use of synthesisers as their sole weapons produces a sound that's both clean and dirty, modern and retro, icy and white hot. They're also the first band to really get people in the audience dancing, which gives testiment to the sharp, confrontational rhythmical fluctuations and the power of the urgent, pace-or-death drumming.

Finishing the job come a triumphant Elevation. They crank up the kinetic flux and raise the pitch of the shouting somewhat, but importantly, they keep the sense of frenzied, electrically wired pop appeal that Drive To The Forest In A Japanese Car set as the standard right from the beginning. Vocalist Kyoko Koide is the focus of attention, but crucially, not to the extent of overshadowing other members of the band. More like the focal point of a painting around which the rest of the composition can gather, she holds the rest of the band in place, with each member contributing equally to the resulting pop art (art pop?). The high point of the set, however, comes at the end when she hangs up her guitar and concentrates all her energy on screeching duties, with the extra space that this leaves the guitar and bass allowing some of the pent-up energy the release that it has been screaming out for. - Ian Martin, Jan.02.05.