The Curtin Bandroom
Outside it is a hot, humid night, but in The Curtin, the temperature has just dropped by a few degrees. Buzzing icy sine waves, like a swarm of crystal locusts, are filling the air, Melbourne duo Ov Pain have arrived. Sitting behind a table of mixers, synths and DI boxes, Renee Barrance and Tim Player conjure a transformative mix of tightly controlled industrial soundscapes. Their music occasionally brings to mind mid-90s electronic acts like Lamb or Seefeel, particularly when Barrance stands to sing.
Tempos are laid back, the beats themselves are skittering and skeletal, more a texture than a rhythm. This leaves a lot of space for their layered synths and Barrance's rich voice and echo-drenched melodies to fill. The final song, a gorgeous Dead Can Dance-style epic, is too new for a name, Barrance says. There is a symbiotic intelligence at work here that makes what could be a formulaic experimentalism something intriguing; music that deserves really good speakers and ideally, a sensory deprivation chamber.
By the time Parsnip takes to the stage the room is almost full and the crowd seem to have become an extension of the Midsumma Festival that is taking place throughout the city. People arrive glad to be out of the heat and thrilled to be in each other’s company. It is a feeling the band reflects in short blasts of organ-driven garage pop. Parsnip's sound comprises Stella Rennax's chunky dry guitar chords, muddy melodic basslines from a barefoot Paris Richens and Rebecca Liston's churning organ, all offset by the sterling work of drummer Carolyn Hawkins. When their voices combine, which is most of the time, Parsnip goes from good to great.
Even more infectious than their tightly played pop is the sense of camaraderie and the confidence with which the band owns the stage. Perhaps it is the context of queer joy filling the streets of Melbourne that emphasises this aspect of the band but, to these ears at least, the link between the freedom that fuelled the sixties psychedelia that Parsnip's music evokes, and the celebratory feeling of the crowd feels especially alive tonight.
“We are The Native Cats from nipaluna,” announces bassist Julian Teakle. A surging looping bassline begins and is soon joined by a drum machine detonating a simple rhythm. This is the perfect platform for singer Chloe Alison Escott who launches into the band's 2023 single My Risks is Art. "My risks is art / The way I lay my chips is art / The way I sway my hips is art / My risks is art / Your risks is art". It's a thrilling opening to what turns out to be an astonishing show. Tonight's concert is to launch their album The Way On is the Way Off from which much of the set is taken.
Not only does that sense of joy flow over from the earlier sets, but tonight we are reminded that the band is now 16 years old. This information triggers an impromptu Q&A. "What was the lowest point?" asks one audience member. "John Howard was still Prime Minister when we started, right?" replies Teakle. "And the highest?" asks another. "Tonight, of course," he says. True to form, Escott takes a little while to compose her own answer which takes the form of an anecdote in which she inadvertently comes out as trans to Jon Spencer, for whom the band were opening. "Chloe," she says in an impersonation of Spencer's big American baritone. "Chloe! All right!" The crowd laughs. "I hadn't even told my parents," Escott adds.
Suplex, Sanremo, Small Town Cop Override and Tanned, Rested and Dead, strong on record, are explosive live. The 13-year-old Power In, from their first album Process Praise, is a revelation. Escott moves between a Nintendo which she reconfigured to play 8-bit melodies, a melodica and drum machine and the microphone. It is here where her most striking talents shine. Escott's lyrics have always been extraordinary, but tonight, with her voice never better, she makes a case for being one of the country's greatest.
It's not only the words themselves but the way Teakle's basslines and the looping drum machine give them the propulsion inherent in their creation while staying out of the way of her frequencies. This is poetic music, but each song begins with a rhythm and much of the crowd spends the night dancing. "I slammed my hand into the city / I slammed my hand into the side of my home town / I hit my head on the doorframe of hell / I banged my shin on the straa-ange situation I'm in," Escott sings on Bass Clef. By force of personality alone, The Native Cats sound like no other band on the planet.
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