Orbital might not be bona-fide Brighton sons but since 2000 Phil and Paul Hartnoll have called the city home.

So, before a proper comeback tour (rather than a greatest hits jaunt), the duo organised a dress-rehearsal for a few friends and competition winners in the old stable block that is the Corn Exchange.

The show was on Wednesday but they’d been rehearsing in the venue all week. Insiders say the bass could be heard in the basement, in the offices and, no doubt, in the satellite Dome office in North Road too.

At the main event the roof shook, the floor shuddered, wusses put their fingers in their ears. I think I even heard the wail of a long-gone horse awoken from the dead.

Wonky is the name of the new record (released April 2) and it is exactly that.

There is straight-up banging techno complete with the phase-shifting fuzz that comes as standard with any electro purchase right now. Next minute it’s dreamy acid house. Then something introspective and minimal before something ecstatic.

The key is it never lets you settle, just as the Hartnoll brothers refuse to do.

Here the old spotlight glasses bobbed and ducked from behind the revamped digital workstation with trippy lights and sharp AV.

Of the new material, Beelzedud (old track Satan made dubstep) was as frightening as New France was euphoric.

As expected, Chime and Belfast sounded as if they were written yesterday - and for one or two old space cadets, chomping away, looking worried, hugging the speakers for comfort, they might as well have been.