Sydney trio Mere Women do the whole minimalist experimental thing, but they don’t do it well live. The split male and female vocals may work in the studio, but without auto tune to help them out, they were horrendously off key and there was far too much awkward banter between tracks with the band arguing between themselves as to which song to play next, causing their set to drag on well over the allotted time slot.
Next on the line-up was local artist Leigh Hannah who plays under the name The Townhouses. His music is very pretty. The layered melodies and general chilled out ambience makes it the perfect come down soundtrack that would be well received at a 4am slot at Rainbow Serpent. Watching the man fiddling with his electronics and delicately crooning barely audible noises into the microphone did not make for an engaging live show though and he would greatly benefit from adding a visual component such as a lights display or video footage to add to the serene atmosphere of his music.
Local three piece Towels get weirder every time I see them play. I guess having that as a gimmick helps when you’re music isn’t particularly fantastic. Zayd, Tom and James are wilfully different which at times led to their set appearing to be highly staged with the constant posing by the band members and the only words spoken by the band onstage was them saying ‘towels’ between each song. Which was funny the first time, not so funny the subsequent six times. They have a couple of brilliant tunes but the rest of the set was patchy and in need of a lot of work if they ever want to transition from being the ‘comic weirdos’ to a serious art house band. The soaring atmospherics of their final song were captivating though; here’s hoping they bring more of that to the party in the future.
Super Melody were the first enjoyable band of the evening. Being the solo project of former Architecture In Helsinki member James Cecil, the crowd was expecting strange, synth heavy dance tracks and the man did deliver with his kitsch 80’s sounds. The music was a lot of fun and Cecil and his mates did make a concerted effort to get into the music with the three of them awkwardly shuffling around the stage but their presence was more off putting than anything else. Cecil is yet to lock in permanent players for his live show, and their lack of band uniformity did bring the tone of the performance down a notch. In the front row the boys from World’s End Press and their cohorts started their own dance party of terribly clichéd 80’s moves to match the music which was far more entertaining to watch than the actual action onstage. Super Melody make great dance jams and the “Octopus” song was hilarious. It’ll be interesting to see what 2011 brings from them.
If you haven’t heard of Toy Balloon then now would be the time to jump on board the proverbial band wagon. In the two years that passed since Greg Cooper and co. played their last Melbourne shows, the band has improved immensely and their sound has evolved from the stripped back shoe-gaze electronic pop that featured on 2009’s glorious debut LP Toy Division to a full blown dance party that has a bit of house, new wave, funk, disco and hip-hop thrown into the musical blender. Due to the big line-up their set got cut short to a mere six tracks but Toy Balloon gave it their all regardless with guitarist Nimai Etheridge jumping on top of the speakers to boogie with the crowd and destroying the drum kit with his sax playing. They put on an incredibly tight performance with the band members in synch with one another while having a blast jumping around the stage to their happy electronic tunes. The new material sounds amazing live and one can only hope they’ll make it back down south soon. Toy Balloon are set to go off in 2011 and with a live show that good they fully deserve your adoration.
