Decoder Ring, Bridezilla &Seekae @ The Zoo, Brisbane(22/08/2009)

Tue 25th Aug, 2009 in Gig Reviews

You’d be forgiven if you’ve never heard of three piece, Seekae. I hadn’t either. Tonight the crowd would spend more time watching the top of their heads then actually seeing their faces thanks to unusually lows synths and keyboards. I don’t think shoegaze is meant to incorporate head banging but I’ve been wrong before. While it would be no surprise if they cited Super Mario Brothers as one of their main influences, their songs were hit and miss. Their abstract sampling is probably meant to be artistic but didn’t fit into the mix. If you remember the 90s, this music bears an uncanny resemblance to iNsuRge’s, Power To The Poison People and the Sunday afternoon come-downs that went with it.

Kicking on next tonight were Bridezilla. While Holiday Sidewinder (and her awesome name) open the set with her soft vocals, it is soon drowned out by Millie Hall’s saxophone. Over the course of the next 40 minutes, which felt like it went for three hours, Daisy Pulley’s violin meandered in and out. The mixing of the whole evening was fuzzy and full of reverb and unfortunately Bridezilla coped the brunt of it. While the women and single gent do play well together, it wasn’t until the end of the set that the group came alive. The set included songs Brown Paper Bag and Saint Francine but thanks to the poor mixing there was nothing more than a few muffled claps from around the room tonight.

After quite the introduction, Decoder Ring had finally arrived. It looked bleak for a while there but the punters arrived just in time for the experimental electronic force that the five Sydney residents have made their own. Beat The Twilight, Fractions, Same Old Paradise and Astronaut Farewell Blues are just some of the powerful soundscapes to envelope The Zoo this evening while imagery of animals, skeletons, cells and natures fury flashed upon the backdrop.

The amount of spoken words tonight could be counted on a single hand. Most of these being “Thanks” from bassist, Matthew Steffen while Xavier Fijac danced in-between injecting keys and samples into the mix. The standout of the evening was, without a doubt, drummer Jasper Fenton. Despite being worth his weight in gold, whatever he is being paid it should be doubled. Not one dropped beat or a nanosecond out of time was enough to make two patrons beside me spend most of the hour set on the invisible drum kit.

In the end only one thing can be certain, when the four horsemen of the Apocalypse ride in at least one of them is going to have Decoder Ring playing on their mp3 player.