Sideshow season in Sydney provides all manner of opportunities for Aus acts looking for a leg up in the support slot sweepstakes. Taswegian three piece Tiger Choir got the nod this evening (possibly as much thanks to extra-leaved clovers as the strength of last year’s self-titled debut EP – judging by the grin glued to his face, singer Elliot Taylor, for one, seemed unable to shake his disbelief at the band’s presence) and made the most of it, mixing zippy little pop punk numbers (in the vein of Die! Die! Die!) amongst some less inspired electronic fare. Promising, but nothing to write home about, on this occasion anyway.
Deerhunter did their thing at The Annandale when last they were in town. They’ve had a leg up or two of their own since then, Bradford Cox’s stellar songwriting chops (and whimsy) taking the group in a poppier direction, and reaching a wider audience, with last year’s stellar Halcyon Digest. Which isn’t to say that they don’t do convulsively brain-churning quarter-hour effects-pedal-offs anymore, but rather that they’ve simply learnt how to keep themselves in check, Cox foregoing the gloriously odd-ball rants in which he’s sometimes indulged with the band themselves barely stopping for air before an apparently capacity crowd.
While they’re masters of ironic delivery (right down to the cutesy half-smiled bows by which bass-player Josh Fauver acknowledges audience enthusiasm at the close of each song), the overriding impression Deerhunter give nowadays is of an earned effortlessness, Cox and guitarist Lockett Pundt playing with an unfussed, I Could Keep Doing This All Day sense of containment. Highlights tonight come in two flavours, the punchy day-glo pop of the former (such as the harmonica-riffed ‘Memory Boy’) and the tightly interlocking, carefully choreographed guitar jams of ‘Desire Lines’ or ‘Nothing Ever Happened’, powered by the latter’s meticulous picking.
Even the most ardent fan’s patience was tested come encore time however, the band, their duty done, using the nostalgic waves of ‘Cover Me (Slowly)’ (track one of 2008’s breakthrough album Microcastle) as the launch-pad for a twenty-five minute descent into Clive Barker-esque psychedelic sound sculpture, culminating in the aforementioned Cox-Pundt pedal-off. You’ve gotta love a group that can empty a place as surely as they can fill it.
Showing posts with label Bradford Cox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bradford Cox. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Monday, November 29, 2010
Avey Tare - Down There
Avey Tare
Down There
****
The problem with getting high is that, by and large, most people have an unfortunate tendency to come crashing down again. Having heaved themselves up to the top of the indie heap with last year’s soaringly optimistic Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective’s various members seem to be working through the issues brought to the surface by rapid success in their own idiosyncratic ways. While Panda Bear continues to produce stellar solo work, enjoying the odd dalliance with the likes of Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox along the way, Avey Tare (Dave Portner, to his mum) has exorcised any iniquitous spirits that may’ve been bothering him by bottling them in his own solo release, the appropriately named Down There.
“Down there”, announces a cybernetic voice at the start of opener ‘Laughing Hieroglyphic,’ before breaking into maniacal laughter. “One of these might jump out and do you in,” observes a demonic one through the murk at its close, a track that otherwise might be the downbeat country cousin of ‘Summertime Clothes’. It signals the gloom-laden quicksand to follow.
Third track ‘Oliver Twist’ makes good on this promise, sinking down with the gators and squelching methane, as does ‘Cemeteries’, as Tare stares back at the world from the cocoon of a waterlogged grave.While there are more than a few moments of the macabre here, the itchy helplessness of ‘Heather In The Hospital’ is easily the blackest spot as well as the most poignant, leading into the sunny-side up ending of ‘Lucky 1’.
Tare has bared his wriggling neuroses to the light, with results that are oppressive, introverted and weird. Highly recommended.
First Published in The Brag, Iss. 389, November 29th 2010
Down There
****
The problem with getting high is that, by and large, most people have an unfortunate tendency to come crashing down again. Having heaved themselves up to the top of the indie heap with last year’s soaringly optimistic Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective’s various members seem to be working through the issues brought to the surface by rapid success in their own idiosyncratic ways. While Panda Bear continues to produce stellar solo work, enjoying the odd dalliance with the likes of Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox along the way, Avey Tare (Dave Portner, to his mum) has exorcised any iniquitous spirits that may’ve been bothering him by bottling them in his own solo release, the appropriately named Down There.
“Down there”, announces a cybernetic voice at the start of opener ‘Laughing Hieroglyphic,’ before breaking into maniacal laughter. “One of these might jump out and do you in,” observes a demonic one through the murk at its close, a track that otherwise might be the downbeat country cousin of ‘Summertime Clothes’. It signals the gloom-laden quicksand to follow.
Third track ‘Oliver Twist’ makes good on this promise, sinking down with the gators and squelching methane, as does ‘Cemeteries’, as Tare stares back at the world from the cocoon of a waterlogged grave.While there are more than a few moments of the macabre here, the itchy helplessness of ‘Heather In The Hospital’ is easily the blackest spot as well as the most poignant, leading into the sunny-side up ending of ‘Lucky 1’.
Tare has bared his wriggling neuroses to the light, with results that are oppressive, introverted and weird. Highly recommended.
First Published in The Brag, Iss. 389, November 29th 2010
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