Sodastream, Brer Mouse, Heligoland - Rob Roy Hotel
There just isn't enough melancholy in the diet of today's average music goer. Doesn't that depress you? Taking your daily dose of docile could contribute to the calming of our current rock epidemic. A number of rock escapees huddle in the Rob Roy, ready for some intense, serious, mature music. Strangely enough each musician can actually play their instrument skilfully rather than just confidently. A female fronts Heligoland - such a rarity these days I didn't realise it was legal. Her haunting folksy yodels echo disturbingly with the same captivating appeal of American slowsters Low. Adelaide boys Brer Mouse arrest our attention with a fantastically diverse arrangement of sounds and troubled vocals. I struggle to ignore the likeness to Radiohead, but the musical aptitude of Brer Mouse supersedes the futility of comparison. Revolving instruments throughout the set sees the use of clarinet, keyboards, viola, grinding guitar and subtly evolving drum beats to compose an ever mounting intensity, always hemmed with intriguing delicacies. The more I see Sodastream, the more I can't help but wonder why they are not selling out large seated venues on consecutive nights. Karl Smith's honest tales of anguish underlined by Pete Cohen's gloomy double bass never fail to beat depression into the jolliest of dans. It's splendid. The emotional confusion messes with you until you don't know whether you are sad, desolate, or elated. One of these moments arises in the distant brooding of Lushington Hall, "I got a letter from you" Karl reflects with an ambiguous hint of dejection. I crave that contemplative line incessantly. Marty Brown helps out tonight on drums, while Karl tests his latest musical apparatus, a 'digital piano' as Pete insists on calling it. Plenty of fresh material is offered tonight with the upbeat Undone finishing the evening. These guys make me want to cry. So now - when's the next gig?
Emily K Perkin
Heligoland - Old Colonial Hotel
When a friend suggests you should go see a band he thought were great, depending on how closely you may know this friend you will go nonetheless, with the knowledge of a certain diplomacy if they were crap. You will probably expect to say "Yeah they were great." Something short and sweet; diplomatically lying. When a friend, in fact a good friend, suggests you go see a band in which he drums, and in the whole time that you've known him he's never drummed, and you wonder if he's been a closet drummer all his life, and you've lived with him for years... well then you expect to be a whole lot more diplomatic. You certainly don't expect to be writing a review. I have put pointer to keyboard because I was truly moved and inspired. The layout of the stage at the Old Colonial hotel reminded me of a suburban lounge room that had somehow arrived in a pub, and it was perfect, even a little bit "The way it used to be." The soundcheck was short, sweet and painless, the lead singer Karen's introduction without pretence, then suddenly, like the soft afterhush of a wave on the shore, the music arrived. The red light for "atmosphere" arrived a little later, but that was truly irrelevant. If comparison were necessary then let me suggest that if artists were assigned colours Heligoland would be somewhere on the colour wheel near Galaxie 500, the Cowboy Junkies, Air, Portishead, Geoffrey Smart paintings of threatening storms in an urban environment. If David Lynch was there I can honestly say he would have bought them on the spot. All compositions were original and the four were relaxed but tight. They were smooth like, alcoholic beverages I choose not to advertise, warm and yet dark, like being scared alone on a silent beach, like when you felt true angst and it made you feel good in a crazy kind of way. The set ended too soon for my liking, but here was a brand new band, low on the pecking order but I am confident not for long. If you want to make a bad mood feel good, if you drink bourbon and listen to the Velvet Underground. If you need some real food and beverages. If you're on the eternal journey and believe dark obstacles threaten to block our minds. Go below to Subterrain and let Heligoland present their picture post card a-la-musique. Bon appetite.
Damien Jones