Space was the place at The Dome on Sunday night. To explain, Burnt Sugar, first up in this double-bill, are heirs to Sun Ra, a bandleader who claimed to have been born on another planet; dance maestros The Bays, the headline act, were simply spaced out.

Americans Burnt Sugar, like Ra's Arkestra, are a big band horn section, two guitars, two basses, electric violin, drums, percussion, three vocalists and, making sense of the mayhem, a dreadlocked conductor.

Their music, like Ra's, has its roots in the jazz avant garde. But with a kaleidoscope of musical references skittering across the stage like will o'the wisps, their brilliant, joyous noise has a root in every contemporary genre with the possible exception of hip-hop.

I can best describe the effect as listening to echoes of different musical styles as you sit at a pavement cafe on a busy, noisy street. A power guitar solo, for instance, hung back in the mix, making it sound like one distant shout among many. And with all those different styles sliding and colliding, tonality was sometimes a casualty of the crash.

Burnt Sugar were great musical storytellers, though. One piece began with reggae vocal and guitar and ended after myriad transformations in an alto sax solo from outer space.

It was all heavenly to me.

The Bays, by contrast, do not take journeys but live in the moment. This is dance music done live as opposed to pre-processed on sequencers in the studio. It's completely improvised drums, bass and guys playing a battery of electronics which would happily grace a starship's flightdeck.

The band gauge the mood of the audience and play accordingly.

Brighton wanted to dance, so pounding beats, made spacey by keyboard chords and electronic effects, was what we got. The extraordinary drummer Andy Gangadeen was the engine of all this energy and the crowd went wild.

But I found myself longing for contrast to break the monotony.

Anything would have done a variation in rhythm, a transition between loud and soft, a single discord among the endlessly consonant chords.

There's no doubting this music's relevance. It chimes well with the relentlessly pounding nature of modern life. But I'm a sucker for stories, for contrasts, for musical progressions.

So while I was captivated by the vivacious complexity of Burnt Sugar, I was underwhelmed by The Bays.

I'm guessing from the reaction of those around me that I was in a minority but I'd like to stop by some planets on my space voyage, not simply hang out among the stars.