Short Circuit – the Roundhouse’s electronica festival – returns in 2010 with an evening celebrating “the best of British electronic music”, headlined and curated by John Foxx.

2010 marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Metamatic, Foxx’s profoundly influential, dystopian synth-pop masterpiece of 1980. For his Roundhouse performance, Foxx – who founded Ultravox before pursuing his solo career – will perform a unique analogue synthesizer show. A “one-off” group of special guests (we’ve got high hopes for this personnel, given Foxx’s recent collaborations with the likes of Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie) will assemble on-stage with the very Moogs, ARPs and drum machines that Foxx used on Metamatic, performing selections from that album as well as early Ultravox material.

The set will also include new music from Foxx, created in collaboration with Leftfield‘s Paul Daley, and songs by John Foxx & The Maths, an all-analogue synthesizer project Foxx has been working on with Benge (a London-based synth guru whose album Twenty Systems album was a critical favourite in 2008). Support comes in the form of a DJ set from Gary Numan and producer Ade Fenton.

Preceding the concert will be a day of events programmed by Foxx, including movies, DJs, VJs and a Super 8 project he’s currently working on with oft-namedropped psychogeographer and author of London Orbital, Iain Sinclair.