Prison Garde

Vaughn Robert Squire is a veteran of the Canadian electronic scene, most famous for his excellent productions as Sixtoo on the Ninja Tune label. Performing as Prison Garde, Squire, who has the distinguished look of a rockabilly punk about him, explained that for his Boiler Room set he was performing brand new work, written on the theme of the cold war in collaboration with fellow Montrealer Andrew Gordon Macpherson (aka Ango). Faced with an array of controllers, patch effects and a 909, the opening tones and voiceover announcing a countdown was reminiscent of Sweet Exorcist's early-Warp classic "Testone." As the house beats came in, the crowd got dancing to the Roland beats and tight acid grooves of this stripped-down hardware set. The combination of the bleeps and countdowns, and the use of hardware, evoked the cold war theme well, but this was not a serious, bleak set — it was fun all the way.