Q: What goes snap, crackle, acid pop?
A: Rat vs Possum playing in a venue enveloped in 300 meters of bubble wrap.

The idea was ingenious. It was like being in an igloo of springy, poppadelic fun. The walls were bubbled wrapped. The floor was bubble wrapped. The speakers were bubble wrapped. The microphone stands were bubble wrapped. The bar and beer taps were bubble wrapped. Bubble wrap cascaded from the ceiling like sheets of poppable clouds descending from heaven. Hell, they even bubble wrapped four people.

Not only was it pretty amusing to hang out in, but it kept Rat vs Possum’s tribal psychedelia insulated. Then again, there is so much density in their music that it would take a sea of bubble wrap to even begin to mute them.

Think four way howling jungle harmonies. Think three way simultaneous stand-up tom tom drumming. Think two way Casio keyboard duels. Think a one way street to stardom.

I never write anything I don’t emphatically believe, so here it goes: Rat vs Possum are the most exciting new live act I have seen this year. Their expert use of loop pedals and drum samplers mish-mash the organised chaos of Animal Collective with The Most Serene Republic’s hypnotic baroque pop. Put them on acid, give them some floor tom toms, and you have RvP. Choruses are half sung, half screeched in pitch by the pocket rocket force of Daphne Shum. From behind the maze of bubble and smoke machines emerges Kieran O’Shea’s distinctive drumming vigour, mingling with one hell of a keyboardist in Andrew Noble. However, tonight’s gold star goes to the sheer fortitude of Matt ‘look-how-many-things-I-can-do-at-once’ Kulesza. He broke drum sticks, shredded the guitar, pounded the bass, and all but annihilated the drum sampler. If you let him play for more than 40 minutes, he’d probably manage to set his hair on fire.

With such a heavy reliance on the accurate use of their many looping devices, some things are guaranteed to go wrong. As much as multi-tasking Kulesza tried, he just couldn’t hit the drum sampler, play guitar and mash a loop pedal simultaneously. The man only has so many limbs. It took six tries to get right; but it was perhaps the mixture of audience anticipation and Kulesza’s determination that made War one of their best. Their upcoming album could fix glitches like these, but I half the fun of watching one of their gigs is the slow development of the songs through layering. To only hear them would be an injustice to the energy they exert on stage. In Jungle Pills, they jingle, ‘I think I love you but it might just be the pills’. MDMA or no MDMA, I know I love Rat vs Possum.

Throughout the night, there was a projector precariously taped to a milk crate held to a wooden beam by electrical wire (Worker’s Club obviously haven’t had the Occupational Health and Safety crew around to inspect the new space yet). RvP were loud and brash enough to draw the attention from Nicci Reid’s amazing AV compilation, which makes Revolver’s efforts pitiful. But Darren Sylvester is only one man, and one man can’t compete with slo-mo live cow birth, 1950s synchronised swimming, and lots of cute videos of puppies licking ice-cream.

Regardless, tonight certainly was revenge of the loop pedals. Sylvester is so much more than just a musician with more effects pedals at his feet than I have toes: he is a one man musical magician. I’d like to coin a word: Mugician. Compared to RvP’s lively calorie burning performance, Sylvester is sly and cool, looking very dapper in heeled boots and a freshly pressed white smoking jacket.

Watching one of Sylvester’s songs grow is akin to watching a flower blossom. Just when you think that there can’t be another layer of petals, it opens up just that little bit more and releases another burst of colour. Something is created out of nothing. The songs emerge from the depths of seemingly unrelated loops and lines, like doing a jigsaw puzzle perfectly in the dark. Armed only with a guitar, a keyboard, a sampler and an orgasmic control over loop pedals, I found myself entranced watching his fingers dabble with the plethora of knobs and switches and pedals and things that go whirrrrrrrrr.

I’m going a bit loopy here. Bring on the revolution.

CHECK OUT ALL THE BUBBLE WRAPED PHOTOS HERE