- Mountain Mocha Kilimanjaro
- Julianna Barwick
- 41 Strings by Nick Zinner
- Amiina
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| Image source: Hot Source |
8 January (Keystone Festival Bar)
Blurb: Mountain Mocha Kilimanjaro combine the rawest soulful grooves that would spark up anyone's dancing shoes and the furious energy of rock and roll, laying it all down in the classiest of funk manners.
Firstly, it poured like crazy. I'm talking about constant rain alternating between buckets and steady drenching. Secondly, the Festival Bar is not the best place to be when it's wet. The red gravel outside gets stuck to your shoes/feet and the inside of the tent smells like mildewy sweaty people.
When I finally made it to the venue—wet despite my raincoat *and* umbrella—I headed straight for the bar and had a cider, then settled in a safe little corner in front of the mixing desk for Electric Empire's final three songs. The mood was jovial and people were bopping energetically. I wrung out my dress in a small puddle.
MMK alighted the stage to wild screams and applause. I'd seen these guys before, a couple of years ago at Festival First Night, and they were deserving of the over-the-top welcome. The gig hit all the right notes: amusing banter in stilted English from the frontman, some really tight jazz-inspired solo instrumentals from each of the musicians, and an infectious rhythm that got the house jumping early on.
I spent the better part of the night in the air, surprised at my own stamina as much as MMK's. The musicians played with vigour and verve, with a love for the music and the crowd that was clearly visible even from halfway down the tent. There wasn't anything to fault in the set, but correspondingly there wasn't anything extra special here, just a solid night of funk. Which, it must be said, is never a bad thing.
Gig rating: 8/10 – top marks for making a miserable night worth coming out for
Enjoyment rating: 7/10 – it's hard to dance in a wet dress
*** *** ***
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| Image source: Sydney Festival |
15 January (The Famous Spiegeltent)
I'll start by saying that Barwick sings as if she's doing the theme music that might accompany a flight of angels. There are equal parts longing and wonder in her voice, a beauty so ethereal that it hurts the good hurt.
Coupled with the magnificent interior of The Famous Spiegeltent, my favourite festival venue, Barwick's songs capture that which most singers find elusive: a certain enigma in the aural aesthetic. Lush and ambient, indeed.
Unfortunately the performance didn't amount to much more than Barwick and her loop pedal and a couple of instruments. I spent a large part of the set squandering my second-row seat and gazing up at the chandelier (for Meow Meow's show) or closing my eyes and letting the notes sink in. There have been more interesting things done with loop pedals (I'm thinking of Mr Percival or Holly from Fergus Brown), so the method is a means of creating a choral effect rather than a novelty. Barwick also didn't bother to invest in a rapport with the audience, despite the reach of her music.
So, although I was glad for this introduction to Miss Barwick—and believe me, I spent a large part of the gig transfixed—I wouldn't rush to buy a ticket to another live performance of hers when the money and time would be better spent just acquiring her albums and getting to know them.
Enjoyment rating: 7/10 – aurally spectacular, but no meaningful connections
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| Image source: Sydney Festival |
5.20pm, 22 January (Sydney Opera House)
Blurb: The piece is part concerto in the classical tradition, but with the modern rock ‘n' roll feel one would expect from Zinner. Zinner
conducts and plays an in-the-round experience with an impressive line-up
of acoustic and electric strings, ranging from violins to electric bass
(with some drums and synths thrown in for good measure).
I don't know Nick Zinner from Adam. Oh yes, I've heard of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but have no idea who's in the band and would not be able to hum a bar of any of their songs if my life depended on it. So let's just establish that I came to the concert on the promise that this would be a dynamic and interesting orchestral experience more akin to an epic instrumental with rock sensibilities than an alternative version of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. I'm happy to say it was all that and more.
I don't know Nick Zinner from Adam. Oh yes, I've heard of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but have no idea who's in the band and would not be able to hum a bar of any of their songs if my life depended on it. So let's just establish that I came to the concert on the promise that this would be a dynamic and interesting orchestral experience more akin to an epic instrumental with rock sensibilities than an alternative version of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. I'm happy to say it was all that and more.
The support act was IIII, a piece also inspired by The Four Seasons, performed by a drum circle. The start was wayward, more noise than music, but once a more conventional rhythm kicked in, all was well. While the piece provided a good kickstart to proceedings and foreshadowed what was to come, I felt it outstayed its welcome. I love me a good drum (I'm a taiko enthusiast after all and a big fan of TaikOz and Synergy Percussion) but I felt the repetition drag on the ears after 10 minutes. The audience were also restless and eager to hear the main performance.
After the interval we were rewarded with the appearance of Zinner surrounded by members of the Australian Youth Orchestra, a handful of drummers from the first set and a few guitarists. To say the piece exuded big themes would not be an understatement. There was a palpable sense that music—and the musicians—knew what it was like to be alive, which complemented a feeling of human insignificance in a bigger picture.
It was great to hear guitar licks alongside the heightened emotions of the strings and I highly recommend that anyone who enjoyed this check out deepblue orchestra, which I would nominate as the only other group that could pull off something this ambitious on roughly the same scale. One petty gripe, one that affected the gig for me, was that the violins were far too shrill at the afternoon performance—more a fault of sound engineering than performance.
Enjoyment rating: 8/10 – inspired some dynamic dreaming
*** *** ***
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| Image source: Sydney Festival |
25 January (The Famous Spiegeltent)
Blurb: Beginning life as the string section for Sigur Rós, Amiina have a unique electronically-infused and ethereal sound. The band's original line-up has since been augmented by the percussive sounds of glockenspiels and bells, as well as saws and other instruments. Live, Amiina deliver an aural treat, creating a dreamy, enigmatic and precisely organised chaos. A must for fans of the beauty and subtlety of contemporary Icelandic music.
What exactly is 'contemporary Icelandic music'? Does anyone actually have a solid definition of this term? Is it sparse ambient music, the kind you'd expect whales to make talking to icebergs? Or is it an icy whisper, like snow falling on a leaf?
Amiina's music embodies the essence of nature in an eloquent, electronic form. There is much that is folksy about the band members' performance but the sound goes beyond a cabin in the woods to bring listeners a flavour of the outdoors. It's like one of those films where the protagonist goes off to 'find himself' and discovers that the world is so much bigger than he imagined. A lot of Amiina's work stands on the precipice where there's an overwhelming tightness in the realisation of the enormity of it all followed swiftly by an acceptance, a love of one's place in the big wide, beautiful world.
The performance, while at times shambolic, was comforting gig with enough humour and grace to make the wait in the pouring rain a worthwhile one. I was particularly impressed with the instrumental handsaw. I mean, where do you get that kind of thing? How do you learn to play it? How do you make sound that blossoms with such a tool?
As a whole there was a lot of love in the room. The lush interior of the spiegeltent fit well with the music, and even the rain outside contributed to the cosiness of it all. Amiina were talented and endearing, and I hope when I see them again it will be in a venue as intimate as this.
Gig rating: 8/10 – sweet but not exceptional
Enjoyment rating: 8/10 – too much drifting can make one impatient
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