Last night Little Dragon provided the final musical escapade of Somerset House’s Summer Series, and it certainly felt like summer was a somewhat edging away from us.

You know what they expected when they planned the event, a beautiful summer evening with downtempo dance music and a drifting sway of Sunday night booziness. But it wasn’t going to be that easy. Synthy pop filled the majestic courtyard space, to a diminished damp crowd, the band doing their best to inspire some energy amongst the audience of 30-something city workers.

Two great screens hung either side of the stage, a branding image projected onto them throughout the entire set. Not really helping get any kind of mood going. That’s the thing with these kinds of things isn’t it, they get so caught up trying to brand it a particular way, create an identity for the series that the bands end up fighting against a load of advertising bullshit rather than just playing a gig.

Vocalist Yukimi’s sumptuous sounds floated through the open air, a curious venue that, under a stormy grey sky, lasers cutting lines, could take you anywhere.

Though I love the bands records, the set struggled somewhat in the drifting similarity of tracks, which blurred into one another without many definitive moments of excitement. A totally respectable Sunday night comedown.

Leanne Neale