Tonight’s lineup could have gotten Arts Victoria funding for a ‘live exploration and reassessment of masculinity and electro rock’; each act taking inspiration from looking inward and exploring what a man is in modern Australian society. Each act also happens to kick arse.
Stripping
off within the opening seconds of the first song. Jonny Telafone, eyes closed, standing amidst small bursts of dry
ice, occupies a bizarrely perfect balance between the seductive and the aggressively
intimate. Though he seems wholly engaged when performing, the second he’s not
singing his sometime-secular paeans to the spiritual and the physical, it’s
like he thinks he’s invisible; swigging beer, stoking his dry ice machine,
freezing in poses. It’s captivating stuff, until his final two songs Stay Strong For Me and The End in which the audience (mostly
men in glasses, trimmed beards and with swept back hair) get noisy in their
appreciation.
Opening
with clouds of choked synth atmospheres, Standish/Carlyon's arresting set builds on crisp, distant drums and
overt sexuality oozing from every plucked bass note and barely discernible
vocal. In lesser hands, it would be easy for this to turn into a prematurely
disappointing mess, but so confident and self-assured are these men, we’re instead
privy to a seamy sub-urban pleasuredome. Focusing on the creation of mood seems
to be their drive, and songs seem to explode unexpectedly. When melodies
surface, as on Nono/Yoyo and Subliminally, they shine brightly. Closing
song Gucci Mountain is introduced as
'A terse psychological thriller taking place over several continents', its
ricochets of sparse slap bass and vocal refrain sending us to our own dark
places.
Equally
adept with sound and mood, and probably the only Australian act to generate
more hyperbole in recent months, is Kirin
J Callinan. Entering the room to silence, he arranges himself amidst two
microphones, adjusts his headset microphone, and kicks into gear. Blasting us
with strobes and lasers, and instantly hitting all the high-mid frequencies
that Standish/Carlyon missed, opening song Halo
and title track of new album Embracism
is galvanizing stuff. Instantly showing us his mastery of production,
Callinan is meticulous in his control of sound, unusual for a performer so
associated with the unpredictable; even the humility of his banter seems
designed to offset the ambition on show. Regardless of hype and filmclips, the
sonic impact here is massive and brilliantly constructed. His guitar sounds are
often deftly tight bursts of chaos, conversely, his voice a hoarse and often
limited (perhaps due to recent overuse) instrument. Chardonnay Sean follows and allows his excellent three-piece backing
band to stretch out.
Moving
from furious blasts of keys and guitar as on Come on USA to near-shoegaze splendour of Victoria M. and Landslide, Callinan’s
set is well-paced and seems to build to the
closing epic Love Delay that leaves
Callinan’s voice at its most ragged. Returning to the stage alone to display
his astoundingly proficient guitar layering, he closes the set with a wave and
leaves to wild cheers. Three bands with a theme, captured at exactly the right
time; tonight is a gig for the time capsule.
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