The Macroprosopus Dancehall Band at ICA

The ICA's Nought To Sixty season flagged up a hell of a lot of emerging artistic talent over the past six months. No surprise then, that the closing party was packed with people with suitably high expectations.

But they pulled it off. For starters, you couldn't move without bumping into one of the Macroprosopus Dancehall Band. And secondly – free beer.

Of course, the highlight was actually seeing the debut performance of the band itself.

The Macroprosopus Dancehall Band is the brainchild of Leopard Leg's Maya-Victoria Kjellstrand and Plan B magazine's Frances Morgan. Commissioned by London-based art agency, ELECTRA, the 30-strong all-girl group use drums, mics, guitars, basses, voices, and a cheese grater to make a powerful, all-consuming sound influenced by the noise of insects swarming.

See what I mean? Totally awesome.

By the time they played the first of their two performances, they'd been practising solidly for over seven hours. They were stressed, but ready. Come 8 o'clock, the atmosphere was tense as the crowd walked into the near darkness, illuminated by a few candles and dim spotlights. Half went on in, while the rest of the party mingled in the bar, lapping up the free drink.

10 o'clock came and heralded the final performance.

A band member in a black bodysuit started tapping. Not tap-dancing exactly but keeping a steady, exhaustive beat for the group. Soon after the percussion kicked in (four girls behind four drum kits) as did the voices.

Wild hoots and raw screams took the place of lyrics as girls leaned hard into their mics. A woman behind a laptop hiked up the distortion while four on the floor wrestled with contact mics as the guitarists stomped on effects pedals.

The passion was palpable, and when the sound reached its grungey, chaotic apex it truly was transportive. The part-practised, part-improv performance gave the lighting guy a bit of trouble, but mesmerised the crowd as lashings of noise ebbed and flowed around us for 40 minutes or more.

Dedicated to noise collaboration, the science of the swarm and the spiritualism for which they're named (doubters should Google 'Macroprosopus'), the band garner more comparisons to the hyper neo-tribalism of Gang Gang Dance and Animal Collective than to any dancehall you might know. With their implausibly high sonic aims, they're over-achievers, for sure, but all the more powerful for it.

Nought To Sixty – you did us proud.