Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti@ Manning Bar, Sydney(9/02/2011)

Mon 14th Feb, 2011 in Gig Reviews

It’s always great to see a solid lineup from start to finish, something that label/promoters Mistletone definitely have a knack for. And tonight’s show was no different, with Sydney acts Holy Balm and Djanimals providing a varied yet entirely appropriate opening bill.

Holy Balm are an interesting prospect. A band that formed out of Sydney’s once-burgeoning DIY/warehouse scene, they layer reverb-drenched vocals, keys and percussion over the top of thick, blunt beats, creating a fusion of no-wave and dance that has no right to sound as good as it does. Tonight wasn’t the best set, with sound issues throughout putting a bit of a dampener on things. But it was still very good, and brought in the evening well.

I last saw Djanimals this time last year, at Laneway festival, performing under his old name Danimals. It was a mess – sloppy slacker indie played without any charm, sounding nothing like his great electronic demos. Luckily he’s completely changed his performance, faithfully recreating his recorded sound by creating live beats and playing guitar backed by drummer James Sudek (ex-*Mercy Arms* ). The songs were a great mix of his early electronic work and the jammy, live aesthetic that his older configuration hinted at an interest in, and for most of the set it worked really well. And the closer, which featured Kirin J. Callinan on guitar and James Domekyo on sax, was a fantastic, jammy way to end the set.

Ariel Pink is famous for his sloppiness. For some, the lo-fi sound of his albums (at least, the older ones) and messy live show give his work an endearingly homespun charm, while for others, the aesthetic is a turnoff. But with a breakthrough album in Before Today and a great Laneway set over the weekend, there was a certain amount of buzz around his headline show. Which made it all the more deflating when it just didn’t click.

A shaky start probably didn’t help, with the sound taking a few songs to settle. And apart from a haphazard but enjoyable Hardcore Pops Are Fun, it took the show some time to finally get going. And when it did, it was really fun – a Before Today pairing of Beverly Kills and L’estat seemed to lift both the band and the crowd, finally giving us that strange mix of nostalgic glow and DIY punk that has made Pink’s music so cherished.

But they couldn’t hold their momentum, and for every noisy pop gem, there was another awkward, jumbled mess. And when the music loses it’s aura, you’re simply left with the unpretty elements – a grown man in a dress slurring reverb-drenched vocals along to a band in disarray. And those things are fine, even endearing, when you believe in what they’re doing. But Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti struggled to instill that belief – particularly with a few barely-audible, effect-laden onstage rants about his disdain for fans. It’s lucky that he believes in himself, then, because it’s hard for anyone else to after such an awkward, frustratingly inconsistent performance.