Pikelet @ The Evelyn,Melbourne (25/07/08)

Wed 30th Jul, 2008 in Gig Reviews

Pikelet – stage-name for one Evelyn Morris, native of Melbourne’s outer suburbs – has been peddling her particular cast of ambient pop for a few years now, despite having started out as a hardcore drummer in bands such as Baseball and True Radical Miracle. She headlined a show at her namesake venue, The Evelyn in Fitzroy, on Friday night and treated the audience to favourites from her previous releases as well as some new material.

Slo-Mo Speedboat, aka Jamie from Architecture in Helsinki, set the scene for a Friday night of soundscapes. He cut a solitary figure on stage, bearded and partially obscured by a mesh screen showing abstract visuals that also played behind him. The set was ambient and a little eccentric, infused with all sorts of global sounds.

Next up were Aleks and the Ramps. Irreverent and immediately likeable, the five band members began their set with a cute choreographed dance among the audience. The Aleks and the Ramps brand of experimental pop, energetic and adventurous, subverts the regular indie-band template, with plenty of instrument swaps to keep it interesting.

Their “hypothetical soundtrack” to a Bruce Willis film in which he saves America from September 11 had a definite kitsch feel, while the banjo gave other tracks an idea of country and western. I imagine that the Ramps each have an eclectic record collection, judging by the melting pot of influences detectable in their music.

A Pikelet show reminds one of how music is a craft. Inventive use of a loop pedal allows the audience to watch Evelyn build a song from scratch, layer upon layer, until she has a complex and melodic finished product. The austerity of some of her instrumentation and her DIY aesthetic are given richness by Evelyn’s formidable vocals and the variety of actual instruments incorporated into her songs. Between Pikelet and her band, drums, accordion, tambourine, triangle, clarinet, vocals plus more were played and looped and woven together. Bug-in-mouth, from her self-titled first LP, was a good example of a Pikelet song as a construction of different sound elements, with looped accordion, hand claps and the beat of mike-tapping. A Bunch had looped tribal-war drums and vocal harmonies.

Pikelet’s new material seemed more ambient and fleshed out than her at times sparse and austere older songs. While her two band members took a seat through the older tracks, Evelyn made good use of their sound-making capabilities on her more recent efforts.

It is, at the very least, remarkable to experience Pikelet’s clever choreography of sound and melody, and to be reminded how much just one person can achieve with a little ingenuity.

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE GIG HERE