From the look of that little stage, something is going to give. It is crammed with gear: some funky and aged, some new and digital, piled high, with gaffer-taped wires running off to secret places. "There's something wrong with the sound," Solex - born Elisabeth Esselink - complains, without panic, to the sound engineer. After a quick exchange in Dutch (she's from Amsterdam), she continues: "The crossover is something bad." "Still sounds Dutch to me," chuckles somebody at the back. Then suddenly it all kicks off, right as rain.

It's an appropriate start for a Solex gig. Every number launches itself across the room like a toddler who, having decided on the toy box in the corner, doesn't quite get the required bodily cooperation and ends up veering off on an unplanned detour, each limb moving with a different ambition from the other, until it comes to a halt head-first against the washing machine. Esselink (vocals and keyboards) is joined by a drummer, guitarist/keyboard player and trumpeter. Her fingers don't race up the keyboard - in fact, she just holds a note down, which triggers one of the various sequences of sounds and ever-changing backbeats that form the basis of the tracks. There is a brave irregularity to the music. An odd assortment of sounds fly by - old organs, jewellery-box chimes, a little dance in seven-time, Hawaiian guitars, a sly bit of trumpet - all with their own patterns and speeds, like the parts of a mobile.

You'd end up in three places at once if you danced to this, but the tracks are held in their rickety place by powerful drumming and guitaring more like something you'd find in a no-nonsense rock band. Over the top, Solex speak-sings, using her diary-like musings to create a focus for each track: "I won a cruise. I'm on the loose... In my bright blue shirts from Taiwan, China. And bright yellow shirts with my collar spread open."

All this stopping, starting and bumping around can leave you feeling robbed of bits you like, or stranded in the middle of a tune. But at least that demands that you listen, and even if you don't know quite where you're heading, there are plenty of interesting things to discover on the way.