Hypnotic Brass Ensemble@Beck'sMusic Box, 28/02/10

Thu 4th Mar, 2010 in Gig Reviews

The festival that ‘offers something to Perth’s intellectual crowd’, as many pretentious prats claimed during this month of cultural vibrancy, ended with eight African-Americans playing superhero music.

The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble’s triumphant brass blastings were a fitting final score for PIAF and a sold out crowd of jazzy urbanised types got right into the swing of things.

Hell, there was even the pungent aroma of weed wafting through the crowd and the average age of a punter would have been about 30. They probably all went home and warned their kids about the danger of drugs too. Ah sweet parental hypocrisy.

UK DJ Giles Peterson was the closing support act and really set some arses shaking into the early hours of Labour Day with an incredible crate of vinyl. Punters knew they were getting a good deal as he dropped stuff from all corners of the planet. His mix was so varied that each new track he introduced totally erased the memory of the previous track because they couldn’t be related.

Like talented disc-jockeys do, he somehow made it all work seamlessly and when MJ’s Don’t Stop Tell You Get Enough made a surprise appearance, the all-important blend of obscurity and familiarity had been achieved.

The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble were the best live backing band The Roots never had. The best American Gangster guest appearance Jay-Z never had. The best session musos Dre never had. Damon Albarn’s onto them though, he signed them to his Honest Jon’s label in 2007.

These cats were born musicians. The seven brass players all share the same father- Phil Cohran, an important figure in Chicago’s jazz scene in the 70s who began the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. With a Dad like this, the Hypnotic brothers’ destiny was written.

Their brotherly connection was obvious at Beck’s as they moved in unison with each other despite each of their their horns having a life of its own. A sousaphone (very very low tuba), two trombones, a baritone horn and three trumpets lined the stage. Christopher ‘360’ Anderson, laid out the ever-complex jazz time signatures at the back and formed an intoxicating rhythm section with the agile riffs of Tycho ‘LT’ Cohran’s sousaphone. The agility defied the low, heavy rumbles his instrument created.

It wasn’t all jazz-confusion though, 360 had no problems marching through a standard hip hop beat which is sort of what Hypnotic were all about. This was confirmed when the crowd were enticed to raise their trigger fingers and bounce with 360’s snare. Seeing 30-somethings getting into this was something else.

It’s often hard to hold a crowd with solely instrumental tunes, so there was plenty of crowd-amping throughout the set. Call and response, the tried and true cheering contest between opposing sides of the crowd and communal dance routines. “Oh look this guy here’s too cool to do it” was the call from the stage when the inevitable miserable sod refused to take part in the choreography. Given the fact that it involved crouching down low, anyone of average height who didn’t take part was bound to be noticed and dissed.

The band’s most accessible track is War and this was the one which got the biggest response. Even if you had never been to the Windy City, it feels like Chicago. They paid tribute to a black superhero with a cover of the Shaft in Africa theme and they returned for an encore after a rapturous stomping on the makeshift grandstand.

It goes without saying that whoever is in charge of recruiting bands for Perth International Arts Festival is an absolute freak of musical taste. Hypnotic Brass Ensemble just confirmed this further and from all reports they even treated deprived Albany to the same confirmation the night before. New York hogs most of the wrap for producing the ‘quality’ music of the States but Chicago quietly goes about business and gives us bands like this and basketball players like Michael Jordan.