Archive for the ‘ Words ’ Category

Dead @ The Waiting Room

November 8th, 2011

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Date: November 4, 2011
Venue: The Waiting Room, Brisbane
Acts: Dead, Cyberne, Idylls, Acid Snake

My first visit to the Waiting Room in Brisbane’s West End is a profitable one as both Melbourne drum-and-bass duo DEAD and Japanese psycho-noise addicts Cyberne turn in sterling performances that test the sound-proofing of the tiny venue.

Jem and Jace of DEAD seem to be continuing along the rich vein that they unearthed with Fangs of a TV Evangelist. Prick Rodeo, particularly, is laden with heavy stoner grooves and massive blasts of percussion. The stand-and-deliver grunt of the tune conveys palpable menace and gets heads nodding approvingly to the beat.

Cyberne, on the other hand, play more like some wild beast bent on savaging whatever happens to come within range. The Osaka-based four-piece pierce the air with chaotic intertwining riffs, incomprehensible screams and the constant bam-crash of cymbals. It’s 30 minutes of the most wonderful entropy where you’re never sure exactly how a tune is going to go berserk.

Mono @ The Hi-Fi

October 30th, 2011

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Date: October 5, 2011
Venue: The Hi-Fi, Brisbane
Acts: Mono, No Anchor, Secret Birds

Shimmering like heat haze, criss-crossing guitar arpeggios seem to pluck at the very heavens. Bass thunders with symphonic grandeur. Crash cymbals scale spine-tingling heights, the crescendos piercing the senses before fracturing into a crystalline silence just as poignant.

Yet the cause, Japanese instrumental quartet, Mono is an isle of still, focused calm at the centre of this typhoon of beautiful, ferocious noise.

As I watch, I’m piqued by a fancy that music is channeling them, rather than the other way round.

That, as soon as they seat themselves on stage, a force possesses them, and the most exquisite sounds just pour forth. Read more

Laughing Clowns @ GOMA

October 4th, 2011

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Date: January 23, 2009
Venue: GOMA, Brisbane
Acts: Laughing Clowns

Optimism (n): an exhibit of contemporary art at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art.
Optimism (n): view that good must ultimately prevail; (habitually) hopeful disposition.
Optimism (n): backing up to see an Ed Kuepper revival of legendary post punk outfit Laughing Clowns just a week after a similar reunion destroyed the artistic credibility of The Saints in the eyes of many Brisbane music-goers.

As a massive fan of Ed Kuepper’s work, there was absolutely no way I was going to miss a reunion, for the first time since 1985, of the classic line-up of his experimental jazz-inflected post-punk outfit Laughing Clowns. Even after the massive debacle with The Saints barely a week before. Still, amidst the excitement there’s a bit of nervous wondering about whether this, too, might end up a trainwreck.

Blind faith is rewarded with an amazing performance that is, for passion and quality, everything The Saints failed to be. If that makes sense. Read more

Nikko @ The Powerhouse

October 2nd, 2011

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Date: September 25, 2011
Venue: The Powerhouse, Brisbane
Acts: Nikko, Dune Rats

Today’s Live Spark proves an inadvertent study of musical contrasts — “support” Dune Rats as brash and carefree as “headliner” Nikko is sombre and serious.

Dune Rats play with a seat-of-the-pants fervour and fun attitude that, in many ways, reminds me of I Heart Hiroshima. There’s a raggedness to their punk-pop racket, yet it’s that selfsame lack of polish that makes their songs all the more enjoyable. How’s that for a contradiction?

By design or by chance, Nikko’s recent support of …And You Shall Know Us By the Trail of the Dead was confronting in its eeriness — most of all in the form of Ryan Potter’s cracked monotone.

That effect is less prominent today, but their assured mastery of their instruments still generates a blissful melancholy as they work through songs both old and new. The set peaks when they take  The Wedding Song and start blending it with a Neil Young cover. The cascades of competing guitar lines as they weave through and around the bass and guitar are simply entrancing.

Teargas @ Burst City

September 26th, 2011

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Date: September 10, 2010
Venue: Burst City
Acts: Teargas, Useless Children, Undead Apes, Pastel Blaze

Locals Pastel Blaze and Undead Apes are both a lot of fun tonight, and Teargas is typically ferocious. But it’s an ear-searing wall of noise from Melbourne called Useless Children that surpasses all else.

It’s an anarchic 30 minutes of squelching, distorted guitars and hammered drums that doesn’t so much as warp around drummer Cinta Master’s Wicked Witch of the West vocal wailing as repeatedly ram into it at a breakneck speed. The incessant smash ‘em up derby of riffs, crash cymbals and Master’s disturbingly animalistic screams makes for a brutal and disorienting experience. Brutal and disorienting enough that I feel compelled to immediately drop some money on their Sky Is Falling LP.

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