jiltedbarfly

Everyone is crowded around the stage, but I can't see anyone performing. I move down to the front. Two people are kneeling on the floor. A chain of effects pedals are arranged in a neat semi-circle. There is a keyboard and something that looks like an etch-a-sketch. They are both wearing masks of emotionless, white faces. Cowls of fabric hang down from them over the neck and shoulders, obscuring the identity of the performers.

The blank, frozen, faces on the masks weave about as the crouched members of High Wolf continually tweak the equipment in front of them. Electronic squiggles leak out from the yards of wires and effects pedals. It's as if we are listening to them flit from one pedal to another trying to escape. There is something forlorn and distant about their sound. Like a faraway howl heard in moon lit hills, trees silhouetted against the skyline.

The sound changes to a slow thud, like hearing your own heartbeat deafening in your ears. A small pipe makes a sound like the Islamic call to prayer. The second half of the set has more emphasis on rhythm. Rattling percussive thumps are synced with the pulsing heartbeat. My interest wanes. There is a lot of this stuff around and the form is hard to critique. All I can say is they had something at the start of their set, but it slipped away.

Sun Araw lay down a heavy, murky, dubbed out rhythm. Dub reggae reinterpreted via stoned indie-rock. Two guitars. One repeats a reggae skank whilst the other plays a slow motion solo. There's reggae riffs and keyboard chords and echoed out vocals. It's woozy, permanently out of focus. As if they've stopped trying to play exact music. Perhaps we should stop trying to listen for it. It's like the aural equivalent of magic eye puzzles. You have to let things get blurry. Only then will you actually hear what there.

Pocahaunted play as a five piece, fleshed out by members of Sun Araw. Strong dubbed reggae vibes. The guitarist, who plays with his legs glued together, plays piston-armed skanks. The keyboard is echoed out in triplicate. The singer performs an ersatz shaman's dance throughout. It always looks a little awkward. Pocahaunted are more forceful live than on record. The spectral coalescences of distant wailing, shambling, primitivist camp-fire percussion, loops and wire thin guitar lines is supplanted by bass, groove, funk and propelled by trad drum kit.

And for that something is lost. The wispy beauty of their records, where their best songs are glimpses of their influences obscured by the mist and fog of their production, is tonight absent.