ELECTRONIC music innovator Matthew Herbert made his name by mixing dance beats with found sounds, most famously on his 1998 breakthrough album Around The House with the sampling of household items such as kitchen utensils.

His creative approach to DJing extends to politics too. On 2001 album Mechanics of Destruction released as Radio Boy — one his many pseudonyms — he samples the destruction of a McDonald’s happy meal, a Murdoch newspaper and a pair of Gap jeans to create jarring tunes he released for free.

More recently, his 2013 release The End of Silence uses the audio of the bombing of a Libyan rebel camp as part of a three-suite instrumental album.

Tonight, as part of the Meltdown festival curated this year by David Byrne, he appears with live singers, including former Amy Winehouse backing singer Ade Omotayo. With brass section in tow, he performs work from his latest soulful and upbeat outing The Shakes.

He’s given an easier ride than his support act, a reading by actor Tobias Menzies, who misanthropically speaks of the challenges of dealing with other humans and how life’s about “reaching 30 or 50 without shooting yourself in the head.”

A pair of impatient hecklers yell: “Be happy!” before they’re angrily shouted down by more polite members of the audience.

His reading is partly an introduction to Herbert, who incorporates Menzies’s reflections on water into an ambient opener before the diminutive and snazzily dressed host pops to the front of the stage.

After playing various snippets off previous albums to teasingly demonstrate to punters what will and will not be performed, he treats the crowd to samples of his tooth being removed at the dentist, cheers from his audience in Tokyo that sound “like a weird firework” and expletives uttered during rehearsals.

Herbert then gets the crowd to cheer, clap and shout: “Us!” before incorporating the noises into an upbeat dance track.

Typically energetic, he frequently dances alongside his live band-mates and at one point creates a wonderful clapping rendition of Strong off his new album.

By the end of the show, he had the entire audience on their feet dancing — impressive for a seated-only venue.

It’s difficult to imagine how watching a man behind a laptop can be much more fun than this.

Review by Will Stone