Though they’ve been floating around the Perth circuit for a few years now, the four members that form Hypnogogia hold themselves to a mixture of allegiance and whim that drew many a puzzled ear from punters.
Riding the wave of psychedelica with all its predatory twists and turns, one could detect a note of dark and subsiding rock filtering into more traditional pathways of thought and style. Ebbing in-and-out, it was easy to see these guys are looking to place themselves outside of the square – in a completely deliberate fashion.This is not such a bad thing. Although when looking at the ambition brimming in the pit of their eyes and the tips of their fingers, the needed cohesion to blow the barriers of perception were somewhat lost and lingering in the midst. Sampling vocals from guitarist Michelle James and lead guitarist Aaron Silver for front material, the mood pillaged between striving for beauty and desire to be unusual, which made for an unsettling freefall.
But if their name is literal, in a musical sense, are they not hitting the mark?
Hailed as Perth’s next diamond-in-the-rough, so to speak, Streetlight have a sheer fascination with that complicated marriage of sight, sound and the unavoidable taste of presence in a recipe that screams ”...ARIA anyone?”.
Though this may be a rather gory exaggeration, the embryo holding their breed of art-textured indie-laced genes could easy be inseminated into the womb of the motherload that is mainstream with a finesse that would leave punters spasming in their wake.
The dastardly charming frontman Leigh Craft is a prime mover of this argument. Swaying to-and-fro with the gusto of a man eagerly losing his sanity to the depths of a vice-binge, in the most polite way of course, Craft lurches from microphone hymn to tambourine breakdown and bouncing retribution. All with the sound swelling to its guaranteed fever pitch.
And that is where their greatest strength lays, in its raw intensity and the bottomed-out ability to call the shots – on song, on the crowd, on power, on the spectacle. The romance of it all leeches emotion from all but the rare exception.
Dense and spiraling forays of sensation and sound could be described as the bastard children of Perth’s psychedelic masters, French Rockets. Frontrunners for the evening’s Ho-Down, the lesson these lads present is not only one of eras gone – but also the lure of music, visualization and the sweet hypnosis they can provide. Or at least it should have been. Using their customary ploy of -mind over matter’, the trio plunged into a five song set that was designed to make your brain melt in surreal dreamy pools out of your ears but one element of their performance was missing. Their insane lighting show.
For those who have never had the pleasure of the experience, one should picture surging pricks of light pulsating and swirling over the dim outlines of the Rockets’ bodies. And they completely devour you.
But the venue’s best source revealed the band’s lighting minstrel took flight after there was some restriction placed on his creativity. Pity. Because although the music was flawless, many were left with a sense of wanting that could not be satisfied. The weapon that they hold to intrigue, bewilder and overwhelm had been lost in a sense – but the Rockets were blameless, filling the hollow as best they were able, and making sure the Fasterlouder folk would still have a band to party to at the end of the night.
to listen to their music now on 
